From a report at ScienceNordic:
Archaeologists have spent all summer excavating a small sample of what has turned out to be a mass grave containing skeletal remains from more than 1,000 warriors, who were killed in battle some 2,000 years ago... The site is located in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø on the Jutland peninsula.Image cropped from the original in a gallery of 13 photographs at the source article.
The area that has so far been excavated contained bone fragments from around 240 men aged between 13 and 45. The men’s bones are marked by melee weapons such as swords and axes... The marks from the predators’ bite indicate that the dead warriors were left to die and rot on the battlefield, without anyone bothering to bury or even remove the bodies...
One of the greatest historians of the Roman Empire, Tacitus (56 AD – 120 AD) described the aftermath of the Roman’s famous defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.
“In the middle of the plain, bones lay either spread out or heaped, depending on whether they had fled or resisted. Next to the bones lay bits of spears and horse limbs, and there were also human heads nailed to trees. In the nearby groves were barbarian altars in which they had sacrificed tribunes and centurions of the first rank,” Tacitus wrote in his Annals...
“The bones are completely fresh,” he says. “Some DNA has been preserved, so we can get a good profile of what Iron Age man looked like. An anthropological analysis of the bones will provide us with a picture of their diet and their physical appearance.” ..
The project, titled ‘The army and post-war rituals in the Iron Age – warriors sacrificed in the bog at Alken Enge in Illerup Ådal’ is a collaboration between archaeologists and geologists at Skanderborg Museum, Moesgård Museum and Aarhus University.
WOW. That's phenomenal!
ReplyDeleteDon't follow the lights!
ReplyDelete?? what do you mean
Deletethe will-o'-the-wisps I guess
DeleteThey didn't wander into the bog and drown. They were killed in battle and the bones or corpses thrown into the bog or pond as a sacrifice or ritual of some kind.
DeleteGiven they ended up in the bog in such terrible circumstances, they still qualify for membership in the ghost light club. I am assuming that the first commenter warned against following these gents' bioluminescence into the bog. However I see little reason for worry as most of the methane is gone by now.
Delete13 years old... what a sad waste of life. Their fathers should have left them home instead of dragging them to the battlefield. But I guess you're never too young to enter Valhalla.
ReplyDelete<<13 years old... what a sad waste of life. Their fathers should have left them home instead of dragging them to the battlefield. But I guess you're never too young to enter Valhalla.>>
DeleteTell that to the 10 and 11 year old kids at the Battle of Gettysburg, and to the 15 year kids at Iwo Jima. Those kids may not have been dragged there by their father, but have gone along of their own free will. Also, if the community is heavily out numbered, the community leaders would have taken everyone they could lay their hands on, including the older kids.
Tacitus had a good grasp of DNA...
ReplyDeleteYes, my ellipsis did wind up being rather awkward. :.)
Delete