The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved (New York Review Books Classics Series) FROM OUR EDITORS
In the last two centuries, well-preserved human bodies, some more than 2,000 years old, have been discovered in bogs throughout northern Europe. Buried with ropes tight around their necks, the corpses show signs of violent ends; yet their facial features are arranged in peaceful, even prayerful repose. In the book, P.V. Glob solves the mystery of the bog people, uncovering a link between these Iron Age corpses and a fertility goddess often portrayed with ornamental neck chains. Recounting a dark, forbidding story, the author introduces us to the Iron Age Germani, to the sacred rituals they performed in secluded woods and groves, and to the goddess Nerthus--a demanding Mother Earth who prescribed a willing human sacrifice to ensure the yearly rhythm of the crops. B&W photos.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"One spring morning two men cutting peat in a Danish bog uncovered a well-preserved body of a man with a noose around his neck. Thinking they had stumbled upon a murder victim, they reported their discovery to the police, who were baffled until they consulted the famous archaeologist P. V. Glob. Glob identified the body as that of a two-thousand-year-old man, ritually murdered and thrown in the bag as a sacrifice to the goddess of fertility." Written in the guise of a scientific defective story, this classic of archaeological history - a best-seller when it was published in England but out of print for many years - is a thoroughly engrossing and still reliable account of the religion, culture, and daily life of the European Iron Age.
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