Huldremose Woman, or Huldre Fen Woman,
is a bog body recovered in 1879 from a peat bog near the village Ramten
in Jutland. Analysis by carbon 14 dating revealed the woman had lived
during the Iron Age, around 160 BCE to 340 CE. The mummified remains are
exhibited at the National Museum of Denmark (in Copenhagen). The
elaborate clothing worn by Huldremose Woman has been reconstructed and
displayed at several museums.
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| Huldremose dress, front/wikipedia |
Over 2000 years ago the body of a woman was
put into an old peat bog in Huldremosen at Ramten village on Djursland,
Jutland. The special oxygen poor conditions in the bog
meant that the woman was preserved as a bog body with skin clothes and
stomach contents. She was found in May 1879 by a worker, Niels Hansen,
who was digging turf for a schoolteacher in Huldremose. In one meters
depth he hit the body with his shovel and
cut off its right hand. The schoolteacher was interested in archaeology
and stopped the digging, and he kept guard by the body for the
next couple of days until the district-medical from Grenaa arrived with a
pharmacist and a police chief. The first theory was that the body had
been the victim of a crime. At that time there was little knowledge
about how to handle a situation like this, and the body of the woman was
brought to the nearest farm where she was undressed and got a good
bath! In connnection to this cleaning her hair fell off. The criminal
proceedings were given up and the body of the mysterious woman was
buried in the church yard by the parish church Ørum nearby.
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| Huldremose woman, wikipedia |
The doctor washed her clothes and dried them in
his yard - and he wrote to the National Museum in Copenhagen from where
they sent a telegram that they wanted both the body of the woman and
her clothes - so the body was dug up and sent with her clothes on
steamship to Copenhagen. In spite of the rough treatment of the 2000
year old clothes they hadn't suffered any damage - and they belong to
the best preserved Danish textiles from antiquity. Like most mummies found in Denmark the woman from Huldremose was fully
dressed. Her dress is incredibly well preserved although it is 2000
years old.
She was
more than 40 years old when she was placed in the bog which was a high
age at that time, in fact an old woman of Iron Age. The find has
brought nutrition to various discussions and interpretations during
times. A possible interpretation is that she was killed and following
this sacrificed in the bog.
The body was found with the legs bent behind the back, with a nearly
severed right arm. Supposedly the arm was damaged by a shovel
during excavation. Apart from this, the corpse was well intact.The
dead lay with head west. The body was identified as a grown woman,
probably rather slender built. The left thighbone had been broken and
grown crookedly. She must have been limping.
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| spergula arvensis/ wikipedia |
According to science exist many informations about what had happened to people
who later became bog bodies. The stomach contents can reveal the person's
meal before death. It is known from the Huldremose woman's stomach
contents that her last meal was rough grinded ray with a big content of
seeds from the weed spergel (spergula arvensis). In her stomach were also animal hairs and rests of animal tissue. This indicated that she also had meat in her dish.
She wore a dress with a checkered skirt and a checkered scarf in sheep
wool and two skin capes. The skirt was held around the waist with a
narrow leather strap woven into a waistband. The scarf was tied around
her head and fastened under the left arm with a needle from a bird's
bone. On the upper body she wore outermost a cape made from several dark
brown sheep skin with a collar of light sheep skin, the curly fur
turning out. Under this she wore another cape with the fur side inwards.
This was made from 11 small dark lamb skin. The cape was well used and
had 22 sewn on patches. They did not cover a hole but contained a finely
made bone comb, a narrow blue hair band and a lether strap, all wrapped
in a bladder. This was obviously not a pocket, since the patches had to
be cut up to get out the things. The insewen things possibly functioned
as amulets.
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| Huldremose woman, exhibition, National Museum/ wikipedia |
Around the woman's long red hair was bound a woolen strip, winded several times around her neck. around
the neck she wore another woolen strip with two amber pearls. An
imprint upon her left hand revealed that she had worn a finger ring, but
there is no trace of a ring today - it was probably removed
in connection to the finding of the body in 1879. Deep inside she wore a
cloth made of plant fibres, maybe nettle or flax. There are only a few
traces of this on her skin and the main part of the material was
decomposed in the bog. The checker of the skirt and the scarf was
alternately light and dark wool, and the long stay in the bog made the
fabric brown. Colour analyses have shown that the skirt originally was
dyed blue and the scarf dyed red.
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| Huldremose, Djursland, photo:gb |
When the Huldremose Woman was killed more than 2000 years ago and was
put into a bog/moor at Djursland, the moors were important ressources
for people of Iron Age. In the moors were dug turf which was used as a
building material and as fuel. Some moors contained bog iron ore, a raw
material, which after processing could be made into iron. The moors had
a great importance for the daily life, but the moors and wet areas
were also a gate between two worlds - the world of humans and the world
of the gods. Humans sacrificed to the gods by putting gifts down into
the water. The gifts were killed livestock, clothes, jewelry, tools and
clay pots filled with food. The sacrifical gifts were meant to secure a
good and abundant harvest. The greatest sacrifice was another human.
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| Tollund man, photo: stigbachmannnielsen, Naturplan foto |
It is not known what happened in connection to the death of the
Huldremose woman. She was fully dressed, had a ring on her finger,
amulettes in one skin cape and two amber pearls around her neck, so she
was not robbed of her possesions by her killers. Across her breast was a
staff of willow wood. These features more reminds about care for the
dead like in a funeral and not about a simple getting rid of a body
after a crime. Maybe she died as the part of a ritual and was then
placed in a sacred moor. Or she had abused the laws and had to fine for
this with her life. But her burial was not a usual burial like a funeral
pyre or a burial service of the Iron Age people.
Forensic analyses have shown that the Huldremose woman had got a violent
cut in her right upper arm. The theory was earlier that the cut of the
arm was the reason for her death, and that she died from blood loss.
Later investigations could not verify this theory, and it is possible
that the damage might have happened later, fx in the turf digging of the
bog. While she was alive she broke her right leg, but this fracture
healed before her death. Her hair was bound with a long woolen cord laid
several times around her neck. There are no marks on the neck which
might indicate strangulation. Maybe the cord had a symbolic meaning.
Strangulated people are known from other Danish bog bodies, like the
bodies from Elling and Borremose and the famous Tollund Man.
About one hundred Danish bog bodies are preserved up till today
because of the special good preservation conditions in the peat bogs.
The mummified bog bodies where skin, hair and stomach contents are
preserved count about a fourth, while the rest of the bog bodies are
only skeletal parts. The most well preserved bodies like the Huldremose
woman, the Grauballe man and the Tollund man are found in raised bogs,
where the necessary sour and oxygen poor condition is present.
source: National Museum, museumsinspektør Flemming Kaul
source: wikipedia
photo: grethe bachmann/ stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan foto.
photo: wikipedia
