Who Was the Tollund Man?
In 1950, while working cutting peat in the Bjaeldskov bog about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) west of Silkeborg in Denmark, the brothers Viggo and Emil Hojgaard came across a man’s body with a “face so fresh they could only suppose they had stumbled on a recent murder,” reported
Smithsonian Magazine . So much so that they called the police. Further analysis however concluded that the body was a remnant from another era.
Dubbed the Tolland Man , the remains were of a 30 or 40-year-old male who lived some time between 405 and 380 BC. Found naked and with a leather noose around his neck, the man had been hung before being carefully placed in a sleeping position and buried in the bog. There he remained, preserved in the Scandinavian peat, for over 2,400 years.