BBC FOUR tonight 9pm (Thursday) 4000 year old cold case: Body in an Irish bog.

LordSutch

BBC FOUR - Body in a bog . . .

An international team of experts assemble to investigate the discovery of a 4,000-year-old body found preserved in an Irish peat bog in Cashel, Co Tipperary. Led by Ned Kelly of the National Museum of Ireland, the archaeologists look at whether the find will help prove Ned's theory that these mummified corpses were once ancient kings, and what clues the cadavers found in the boglands of northern Europe can offer to explain the history of ritual murder. However, new scientific research suggests these deaths may be explained by prehistoric climate change.

Looking forward to it tonight.

tac foley

I'm watching this now.

Fascinating stuff!

tac

dr gonzo

Grr, I missed it. Final verdict folks?

tac foley

Well, they tried VERY hard to make out that he was some form of high-status person - [no sh*t sherlock], maybe a kind of 'summer king' dying for the land, but the whole thing was very repetitive - like talking to a class who did not actually speak English - and as full of conjecture as you might expect from a four-thousand year-old mystery corpse.

Was he deliberately killed and put in the bog? The large number of probably fatal injuries suggest that was the case - the so-called 'triple death'. The lack of stomach was a real downer - most bog bodies have been fed a last meal of mixed vegetation that serves to pinpoint the time they went into the water, and sadly this very important piece of evidence was missing in Cashel Man.

Nothing new there, then, except that, for the time being, Ireland is the home of the oldest-known bog body.

tac

slowburner

I agree with tac. The repetition was very irritating and overall the programme was somewhat scattered and shallow, almost like 'An Introduction to Bog Bodies'.
Personally, I'd like to have seen Ned Kelly's Kingship and Sacrifice theory examined in greater detail, especially a discussion of alternative theories to test the hypothesis.
The other thing that grated was how the background information centred on the Iron Age when the most remarkable thing is that Cashel man was early Bronze Age.
If the Kingship and Sacrifice theory is accurate, then the longevity of the practice is surely the most interesting and illuminating fact. This was not mentioned once.

4.5/10 :pac:

robp

tac foley wrote: »

Well, they tried VERY hard to make out that he was some form of high-status person - [no sh*t sherlock], maybe a kind of 'summer king' dying for the land, but the whole thing was very repetitive - like talking to a class who did not actually speak English - and as full of conjecture as you might expect from a four-thousand year-old mystery corpse.

Was he deliberately killed and put in the bog? The large number of probably fatal injuries suggest that was the case - the so-called 'triple death'. The lack of stomach was a real downer - most bog bodies have been fed a last meal of mixed vegetation that serves to pinpoint the time they went into the water, and sadly this very important piece of evidence was missing in Cashel Man.

Nothing new there, then, except that, for the time being, Ireland is the home of the oldest-known bog body.

tac

I 'd like to better understand this statement. It was widely reported in the media. Yet I had an impression the Stoneyisland from Galway remains were older (Neolithic). Perhaps its not counted if it only comprised of bones.

mocmo

As I understand it Cashel Man is the worlds oldest 'fleshed' body. There are Neolithic bog bodies from Ireland and mainland Europe but due to their being buried in fen peats which have a different ph value to raised bog, the soft tissue does not survive and such bodies consist only of skeletal remains.

I haven't watched the documentary yet but it sounds quite like several others that have been made in the last few years exploring the kingship and sacrifice theory. It's certainly an interesting theory, however it seems to me these days that anything dated to the Iron Age and buried in an Irish bog is now part of this 'practice' which I think is oversimplifying things.

tac foley

I agree totally with slowburner. I'm not an archeologist, but I HAVE taken the trouble to invenst a lot of time and money over the years in books and visits to Denmark and The Netherlands to see the real bodies, although Tollund Man is a clever replica. Ad, of course, not forgetting that here in UK there is another such set of remains - Lindow Man.

This programme COULD have been a marker, as it was, it was a sad and shallow brush with the reaity of four thousand years ago in our past, and I felt cheated by it.

The emphasis on trying to understand 'who' he was was, to my mind, utterly ridiculous, unless I got the significance of the dialog entirely wrong. Irish names, even in recent history, are often open to conjecture, myth and legend, and to presuppose that an unknown idividual, put naked into a peat bog four thousand years ago might be identified is ludicrous in the extreme. In my mind, asking 'who?' means 'what name has he?'

Incidentally, my point that it was not possible to identify the time he went into the bog was concerned with the actual season of the year [which could have been identified from the missing stomach contents], not the year-span.

tac

Ipso

Was this the body where nipples were removed? I remember an idea I read about a while back that kings subjects would suck on his nipples as a sign of respect and whn the kings died their nipples were removed.

Akhenaten

Ipso wrote: »

Was this the body where nipples were removed? I remember an idea I read about a while back that kings subjects would suck on his nipples as a sign of respect and whn the kings died their nipples were removed.

No,that was Old Croghan man.I think BBC's Timewatch produced a similar documentary in relation to Old Croghan man.

Yes,you're right about the king's subjects paying homage by sucking his nipples - bizarre!It's mentioned as far as I can recall in the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis(Gerald of Wales),possibly 'Topographia Hibernica'.

tac foley

THESE were a good read when I bought them a few years ago - out of date now, though -

'Dying for the Gods' by Miranda Aldhouse Green - ISBN 1-888-313-2665

'Bog Bodies' by R C Turner and R G Scaife - ISBN 0-7141-2305-6

I have a few others, but they are either in Danish, Dutch or Slovenian - if you want details I can pm them for you.

tac

mocmo

Another great book is 'Through nature to eternity; the bog bodies of northwest Eurpoe' by Winjand van der Sanden. It's a really easy read, packed with information and excellent illustrations, one I recommend to archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike.

tac foley

mocmo wrote: »

Another great book is 'Through nature to eternity; the bog bodies of northwest Eurpoe' by Winjand van der Sanden. It's a really easy read, packed with information and excellent illustrations, one I recommend to archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike.

That's one of the books I have in Dutch!

tac

Standard Toaster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZrghjfEK0g