Tollund Man: The Iron Age Bog Body Found in Denmark

Tollund Man is the naturally preserved body of a man who lived in Denmark during the Pre-Roman Iron Age and died around 405-380 BC. He was found in 1950 in a peat bog near Silkeborg in Jutland, so well preserved that the men who uncovered him thought he was a recent murder victim. With a rope still around his neck and a peaceful expression on his face, he has become the most famous of Europe’s bog bodies.

Discovery in 1950

On 6 May 1950 the brothers Viggo and Emil Højgaard were cutting peat for fuel in the Bjældskovdal bog, about 10 km west of Silkeborg. Deep in the peat they found a body lying on its side in a curled position, as if asleep.

The face looked so fresh that they called the police, fearing a recent crime. The police in turn contacted archaeologists, and Professor P. V. Glob of Aarhus University came to examine the find. He recognised at once that the man was ancient. The body was lifted in a block of peat and taken to the National Museum in Copenhagen for study.

Another bog body, the Elling Woman, had been found in 1938 in the same bog, a short distance away. She too had died by hanging.

The man and his appearance

Tollund Man was an adult of about 40 years old. He was about 1.61 m tall as found, though the body had shrunk in the bog. His hair was cut short, and there was stubble on his chin and upper lip, suggesting that he had shaved a day or so before death.

He was naked apart from a pointed cap made of sheepskin, fastened under the chin with a strap, and a thin hide belt around his waist. His eyes and mouth were closed. No weapons, tools or other objects were found with him.

How did he die?

Around his neck was a noose made of two plaited strips of leather, pulled tight, with the end trailing over his back. Marks on the neck are consistent with hanging, and later forensic examinations concluded that he had most likely been hanged rather than strangled. Afterwards someone had closed his eyes and mouth and laid him carefully in an old peat cutting.

Most scholars think he was a sacrifice. Many bog bodies from northern Europe show signs of violent death, and bogs were also used for offerings of weapons, tools and valuables, such as the Gundestrup Cauldron and the Nydam Boat. Glob linked Tollund Man to fertility rites. He pointed to the Roman writer Tacitus, who described a goddess called Nerthus worshipped by Germanic peoples and attended by rituals that ended with drownings in a lake. Tacitus wrote centuries later and about different peoples, so the parallel is suggestive rather than proof.

Other interpretations are possible. Tacitus also says some Germanic peoples executed criminals and sank them in bogs. Because Tollund Man was treated with care after death, however, many researchers prefer a ritual explanation.

What science has learned

Tollund Man has been studied repeatedly as scientific methods improved. Radiocarbon dating, refined in a study published in 2021, places his death at around 405-380 BC. X-rays and CT scans showed that his brain and internal organs had survived.

His intestines contained the remains of his last meal. Early analysis found a porridge or gruel of barley, flax seed and the seeds of wild plants. A new study by the Silkeborg Museum and the National Museum, published in 2021, identified pale persicaria (a knotweed), traces of fish and burnt crust from the cooking pot, and showed that he had eaten some 12 to 24 hours before his death. Eggs of whipworm, maw worm and tapeworm showed he had carried intestinal parasites.

Preservation and display

Raised bogs are cold, waterlogged and acidic, with little oxygen. Under these conditions the bacteria that cause decay cannot thrive, and a substance released by sphagnum moss tans the skin. The acid, however, dissolves calcium, so bones in bog bodies are often soft or partly lost.

Conservation techniques were limited in 1950. The head was treated and preserved successfully, but the rest of the body was allowed to dry out, and only parts of it, including the feet and one finger, were kept. Today the Silkeborg Museum displays the original head alongside a replica body made in 1987, so visitors can see him as he was found.

Bog bodies of northern Europe

Tollund Man is one of several hundred bodies and skeletons recovered from bogs in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland. Most date from the Iron Age, roughly 800 BC to AD 200, although some are much older or more recent.

Two other Danish finds are especially well known. Grauballe Man, discovered in 1952 not far from Silkeborg, had his throat cut; he is now displayed at the Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus. The Elling Woman, from the same bog as Tollund Man, wore a skin cape and had her hair arranged in an elaborate plait.

Many bog bodies show evidence of violent death, such as hanging, stabbing or blows to the head, and some appear to have been pinned down with stakes or branches. Not every injury was inflicted before death, however: the weight of peat can break bones and twist bodies long afterwards, so each case needs careful study. Taken together, the finds suggest that bogs were seen as special places on the boundary between the human and the supernatural world.

Myths and facts

Many visitors assume that the whole body on display in Silkeborg is original. In fact only the head is the real Tollund Man; the body is a careful replica. Another common belief is that bog bodies were deliberately mummified or embalmed. They were not: their preservation is entirely natural, the result of the chemistry of the bog, and the degree of preservation varies greatly from one find to another.

It is also sometimes said that Tollund Man was a murder victim hidden by his killers. The careful way he was laid out, with eyes and mouth closed, argues against a hasty concealment. Even so, without written records from his community, the exact reason for his death will probably never be known.

Tollund Man in culture

Glob’s book The Bog People, published in Danish in 1965 and in English in 1969, made Tollund Man internationally famous. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote “The Tollund Man” (1972) after seeing its photographs, drawing parallels between ancient sacrifice and the violence of Northern Ireland. The face of Tollund Man has since become one of the best-known images of prehistoric Europe.

Timeline

• c. 405-380 BC: Tollund Man dies by hanging and is laid in the bog.
• 1938: The Elling Woman is found in the same bog.
• 1950, 6 May: Viggo and Emil Højgaard discover Tollund Man while cutting peat.
• 1965: P. V. Glob publishes his book on the bog bodies in Danish.
• 1972: Seamus Heaney publishes his poem “The Tollund Man”.
• 1987: A replica body is made for display at the Silkeborg Museum.
• 2021: New studies refine his date and analyse his last meal.

Why it matters

Tollund Man lets people meet an Iron Age European almost face to face. His body preserves information about diet, health, clothing and ritual that rarely survives anywhere else. He also raises lasting questions about belief and violence in prehistoric societies, which scientists and historians are still exploring.