When was grauballe man born

The most important task of the Press is to disseminate and make known the results of scientific research at Aarhus University, but the Press also publishes scientific work from other institutions. The Second Millennium Settlements Failaka. Out of stock. About the book Press reviews About the book Grauballe Man was about 34 years old when he met his death.

New release. Publish with Aarhus University Press. Details Grauballe Man was about 34 years old when he met his death. He died from a deep cut to the throat. His right shinbone was also fractured. He undoubtedly suffered a violent end -- he was executed -- and was then laid naked in a water-filled peat cutting in the bog. The ultimate sacrifice was made that day around BC -- a human life -- to the supernatural powers or in the service of some other urgent cause.

Few finds from Denmark's prehistory enjoy the attention and interest afforded by the public and the media to Grauballe Man, who is exhibited at Moesgaard Museum, south of Aarhus, Denmark.

Never before had an entire human body been conserved, so the first step was to invent a method. It was decided to complete the conservation process that had begun in the bog through more than two millennia. Eighteen months immersed in a bath of water and oak bark completed the tanning process and, as the conservator put it, Grauballe Man was then as well-preserved as an old boot. His only treatment since conservation has been the regular application of Turkish Red Oil — similarly a very stable product.

The conservator preparing the body after conservation: the rubbing in leather dressing completed the conservation. He showed that peat could tan the skin, and that sphagnum acid was an important element in process. Furthermore, as with all post-mortem, diagenetic changes, low temperature plays an important role and bogs are also characterized by their acidity and absence of aerobic putrefying bacteria.

Recent research has also shown that the diagenetic processes in the bog also rely on reactions involving a polysaccharide, sphagnan. Sphagnan also starts a process called the Maillard reaction: a complex suite of reactions between free aminogroups amins, aminoacids, peptides and proteins with reducing sugars.

Maillard reactions are commonly encounted in food-processing, e. The end result of the above reactions, as seen for most bog bodies, is that bone mineral is leached from the mineralised tissues, and conversely that mineral salts, often containing iron, are probably absorbed into collagenous tissues such as the dermis, ligaments, tendons and fasciae. Presumably the tissues with their proteinaceous content draw water.

It seems that the water content to some degree keeps the bog bodies in a more or less unaltered gross morphological shape and size, but when a bog body is dried out when taken from the bog the water evaporates, and this may lead to a marked shrinkage.

The skull and facial skeleton will also be soft, meaning that impressions may be made if the find is not handled with care. The only way of preserving the bog bodies found before the Second World war was simply drying the body or body parts, out.

The tissues harden and the consistency of the bog body becomes like one of hardened cardboard. The body is no longer pliable and all folds and wrinkles will be set.

All the above reactions will have grossly altered the tissues, and even more problematically, to a differing degree within even the single tissue type or tissue entity, like a within a single bone. Unfortunately, this may also lead to claims of extremely rare diseases or congenital disease, e. Grauballe Man changed this: as noted above his preservation was done by using oils, and thinking more closely about the boggy environment from which he came.

Not least the preservation of soft tissue allows for interesting analyses. As the skin is very often preserved in bog bodies, trauma, in the form of penetrating lesions or cuts, may be seen as well as minor pathologies such as warts, for which we have no other paleopathological sources or finds. Interior organs and muscles may also be preserved to differing degrees allowing assessment of these. At the same time, the presence of the integumentary soft tissue may hinder other analyses, not least osteological analyses.

It is possible to conduct an autopsy, but while this has indeed been carried out, e. An autopsy with full opening of the body cavities will invariably destroy the integrity of the bog body as an archaeological specimen, and future studies may be compromised. Today there is a recognition that a bog body is an invaluable archaeological object. CT-scanning results in digital data which can be post-processed, even down to manual editing of the single image slices.

The 3-dimensional rendering also makes it possible to apply methods developed for dry bones for sexing and aging. Skull and pelvis shape may also be extracted and studied for sexing purposes.

While external genitalia may be present on bog bodies, many bog finds comprise only body parts, and thus sexing will rely on extracting and assessing skeletal features or measures. We acknowledge that this will probably be an ongoing discussion: the lesions, peri- or post-mortem, are all affected and changed diagenetically, blurring the distinctions even more, but certainly all lesions and signs of trauma should be appraised critically.

As CT-scanning is digitial, this also means that data can be shared with other scientists or museums, and easily stored for future reference. This may be of importance also for the curatorial staff, as a status of the preservation of internal structures may be had and used for references for the curatorial and preservational measures taken.

Finally, the digital CT-scanning data may be used in 3-dimensional printing: it is possible to produce a copy of scanned structures, e. This may be utilized for exhibitions purposes and as basis for facial approximations of bog bodies, e.

Grauballe Man. Groundbreaking analyses of the gut contents of Grauballe Man were carried out when he was found, and a major re-analyses of the latter was carried out in Stomach and gut contents thus dramatically show what was the last meal.