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Exhibit shed light on Europeans 10,000 years ago

By Frances Borsodi Zajac 6 min read

She is known as Yde Girl, just 16 years old, from the Netherlands. She died 2,000 years ago, strangled, and her body was left in the bogs of northern Europe. Yde Girl is now a mummy, but through the magic of forensic science, scientists know more about her, including the clothes she wore when she died and that she was probably strangled with her own belt. Facial reconstruction has provided a picture of the teenager with long, blond hair and blue eyes.

He is called Red Franz, a Germanic warrior whose blond hair and short-cropped beard were turned red in the bog that claimed his body more than 1,500 years ago. Although he previously broke his clavicle and his shoulder was wounded, researchers believe he died from having his throat cut. His face has also been reconstructed to allow visitors an opportunity to see him as more than a mummy, to see Franz as he would have been in life.

Yde Girl and Red Franz are two of the more compelling figures in “The Mysterious Bog People,’ a new traveling exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh that will be on display through Jan 23. An international exhibit created by four major European and Canadian museums, “Bog People’ gives insight into the lifestyle of ancient Europeans, including religious beliefs that are linked to human sacrifices. The Carnegie is the first museum in the United States to host “Bog People’ and the only museum in the eastern United States scheduled to show it.

Located on the museum’s third floor, this intriguing exhibit gives visitors the feeling of actually being in a bog, a sometimes eerie, mysterious place where nighttime traveling can be dangerous. A timeline that dates back to 10,000 B.C. explains how people of this region lived, going through their change in lifestyles from hunters and gatherers to farmers, and then advances in technology.

The exhibit includes seven mummies and more than 300 artifacts that are believed linked with religious ceremonies in prehistoric northern Europe – sacrifices these people made to their gods. Their sacrifices range from food in leather pouches and later ceramic containers to weapons, coins, jewelry and musical instruments. All of these items are remarkably well preserved.

“They believed if they placed offerings in natural places, such as below a cliff, a cave or in a watery place, they could communicate with their gods and ancestors – with the spiritual world. They believed watery places were natural conduits to send messages – lakes, ponds, rivers, wells and bogs,” said Sandra Olsen, the museum’s curator of anthropology.

Bogs begin as a lake with a lot of reeds. As the water level recedes, the reeds decay and are deposited in the lake. They become sphagnum moss that builds and eventually forms peat. A natural antibacterial agent, sphagnum moss is also a natural preservative because it has a low oxygen level and bacterial count. The combination of sphagnum moss, lack of oxygen, submersion in water and tannic acid produced from the plants preserved these offerings left for the gods, so people have a chance to study them today.

The conditions also were conducive to preserving the mummies.

Discoveries of bog bodies began in the 1700s as people started cutting up peat bog to be burned as fuel. Fewer bodies are discovered today as machines have taken over the work formerly done by hand and Europe’s bogs are disappearing. But hundreds of bog bodies have been found through the years. Not all were saved. Olsen explained the bodies often were reburied or sometimes people ground what bones and teeth were found to use as medicine because they were believed to have special healing properties.

Worldwide, approximately 30 complete bog bodies have been recovered, while fragments of another 200 have been found. Their hair, skin and soft tissue remains have been preserved, although the environment is not good for bones and teeth, which tend to dissolve.

Most of the mummies in “The Bog People’ exhibit were discovered in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Because they were not well preserved, their bodies shrank.

Some of the bog mummies, like Yde Girl and Red Franz, were found to have met violent deaths. The Weerdinge couple, discovered in the Netherlands and believed to have died in 700 to 500 B.C., originally were thought to be a man and woman, but recent research shows them both to be men. One of them has a hole in his chest.

While it’s possible these people were murdered or punished, the number of finds leads researchers to believe their deaths are linked to religious ceremonies and human sacrifice.

Olsen explained sacrifices were made to ensure fertility, avert natural disaster, ensure a successful battle or give thanks for a previous battle won, and also to celebrate seasons or as a rite of passage.

Modern technology has allowed researchers to learn much about these people from studying both the mummies and the objects they left behind, including how they wore their hair, the food they ate and how they prepared it, their clothes and shoes, their jewelry, their music and their weapons.

“All of these things we know because of the bogs,’ said Olsen, “and that makes it very special.’

The findings also confirm writings of this time period. While the people of northern Europe did not use a written language, the Romans did. For example, Roman historian Tacitus wrote about the Germanic custom of ritual drownings in the bogs.

In fact, the exhibit takes advantage of the public’s fascination with the television show “CSI,’ (crime scene investigation) to create its own “BSI,’ Bog Science Investigation, segment. This program explains the science behind the study of the mummies and also offers its own hands-on section: seven work stations where visitors can investigate hypothetical bog bodies to determine the person’s sex, age, height, probable cause of death and when he or she lived.

An accompanying exhibit, “Moorscapes – A Vanishing Legacy,’ contains 50 photographs by German artist Wolfgang Bartels. Bogs, also known as moors or marshlands, provide a beautiful yet eerie landscape. The photographs allow visitors to “The Mysterious Bog People’ an opportunity to see the northern European bogs.

For more information, including programs and lectures, visit the museum’s Web site at www.carnegieMNH.org or phone 412-622-3131.

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