Bjældskovdal (the Tollund Man's bog)

Midtjylland, Silkeborg · Denmark · Natural site

The peat cutters thought they had found a murder victim. The man in the bog had lain there 2,300 years, the rope still around his neck.

On 6 May 1950 the Højgård family put a spade into the peat at Bjældskovdal, ten kilometres west of Silkeborg, and struck a face. It was so well preserved that the police were called. The man turned out to have died around 300 BC, at the transition from Bronze to Iron Age, aged 30 to 40. A plaited leather cord was drawn tight around his throat: he was hanged, then lowered into the bog as a sacrifice. His face is calm, the eyes closed, as if asleep. He was not alone. Within a hundred metres two more bog bodies have been found — the Elling Woman in 1938, hanged in the same manner, and an unexamined find from 1927. Bjældskovdal is a sacrificial bog: a place where people were given to the gods, then kept whole by black water.

FAQ

Where is Bjældskovdal (the Tollund Man's bog) located?

Bjældskovdal (the Tollund Man's bog) is in Midtjylland, Silkeborg, Denmark.