Celts And 'human Sacrifice'? (bog Bodies)

[Lacertus]

I wrote just now a work about Celtic society for my University and I collected a mount information about Celts including some methods of their burials.

Well, the most part of Britain, Ireland and North Europe was covered by bogs, people lived near bogs, cross the bogs, build the roads throw bogs. They knew that bogs are the great place that can safe their dead bodies too. The bogs were the place of burials for many Celtic people. They preferred to draw down in the bogs dead bodies. Such was indeed the case. There were very different bodies: men, women, and children. They were in different clothes and they could have some wounds or have not them, because the true reasons of their deaths were different of course.

I couldn

Edited February 22, 2006 by Lacertus

[Chyhoedd da]

Im asuming that since Bogs are like swamps (watery) they were sacred to Celts. Perhaps some of thsoe (unharmed, or slightly, such as disease) decided to use the bogs to go to the Otherworld (Watery places were believed to be portals) So maybe this was like Christains burying thier dead to go to heaven.

 

Also, what date did you say these dated around too? Becuase some bodies have been found dating to around 50 ad (or bc, i forget) .... around the time of Roman Invasion of Brittian. those volunteered to sacrafice themselves(to gods?) as to help thier tribe fend off the invaders.

 

Though the mutilation of the bodies, I have no idea, they werent prizes of war, for they still had thier heads. Maybe this was an assisted suicide? Perhaps these celts seeing that they could not fight (or be of any use) (perhaps caused by battle) decided to die so that they could go to the Otherworld (the Irish Otherworld was much like Valhalla, and getting there (demanded?) that one die fighting or by a weapon

 

Maybe the decaption of the body at certain places was an early like form of head-hunting or perhaps those parts were symbols of something which the sacraficee (ed) beleived would be giving to them ... such as strength.

[docoflove1974]

Your post is scattered and doesn't make much sense. But the bog bodies of this particular TV show dated to 200-300 BCE, well before any Roman presence. Also, there are different bog bodies; some which are 'whole', others which are mutilated. My question was geared specifically to the mutilated ones, as the narrator and the experts lined up on the show weighed heavily towards the 'Celtic human sacrifice' side of the argument, and I did not find it so compelling based on the information presented.

[Pertinax]

Your post is scattered and doesn't make much sense. But the bog bodies of this particular TV show dated to 200-300 BCE, well before any Roman presence. Also, there are different bog bodies; some which are 'whole', others which are mutilated. My question was geared specifically to the mutilated ones, as the narrator and the experts lined up on the show weighed heavily towards the 'Celtic human sacrifice' side of the argument, and I did not find it so compelling based on the information presented.

 

were the mutilations of the same pattern on each body ? or were they similar in size and depth?

[Germanicus]

What defines a human sacrifice ?

 

Quoting Cato:-

 

So from the Strabo text it seems possible that a Druid, dressed in his finery, had a couple of murderers torn to bits--not as a sacrifice, but as a gristly execution.

 

I would have thought human sacrifice always included an execution. I think if accoring to Strabo Druids are reading the death throws of the sacrificed for the purposes of divining in a manner consistant with their religeon, is this not human sacrifice ?

 

I do think Celtic peoples would have sacrificed enemies or criminals as opposed to free members of their own tribes, in the way that Vikings sacrificed prisoners to Odin by hanging them from trees - I believe Odin is a God with a Celtic origin. Like Caesar says:-

 

"It is judged that the punishment of those who participated in theft or brigandage or other crimes are more pleasing to the immortal gods"

 

The below is from www.digitalmedievalist.com:-

 

 

The best archaeological data supporting Celtic human sacrifice is the body of the man placed in Lindow bog in the first or second century C.E. We actually have the body (well, most of it) so well preserved that scientists were able to analyze his stomach contents to discover his last meal (a partially scorched grain cake). Lindow man was almost certainly a ritual sacrifice; he was strangled, hit on the head, and had his throat cut, in quick order, then surrendered to the bog. This pattern fits the "three-fold" death referred to in medieval Irish tales. What's more, the man seems to have been of high social rank, and a willing victim.

 

In East Yorkshire, at Garton Slack a young man and a woman of about thirty were found huddled together in a shaft, a wooden stake between them pinning their arms together; the woman was apparently pregnant, since a fetal skeleton was found beneath her pelvis. Presumably the two adults were ritually killed for punitive purposes.

[docoflove1974]

were the mutilations of the same pattern on each body ? or were they similar in size and depth?

 

I don't recall fully--and perhaps the program didn't go into it much--but they seemed like clean cuts to remove the body parts (as opposed to, say, hacking off parts with an axe). There were some seemingly knife cuts, like a 'torture'-style incision, to the arms of one. But I can't recall much more than that.

 

This is the link for the show; it focused mostly on Oldcroghan Man and I can't remember the other, but it's linked to an area near Old Croghan and also outside of Dublin. Like I said, it was interesting to learn more about them, since I knew nothing, but it doesn't convince me about cultural practices outlined in the show.

 

Germanicus, your option sounds more, well, normal about what we know about several cultures. The Aztecs did much the same thing with the warriors of their conquered enemies, and it makes more sense to sacrifice outsiders vs. your own, except for very desperate times. The bog couple sounds interesting, though, and it makes one wonder what sort of crime could have been committed to warrant such punishment, if that indeed is what it is.

[Andrew Dalby]

I'd love to know if there is any positive ancient evidence that the 'bog bodies' represent human sacrifice. Tacitus (maybe others too) definitely says that criminals guilty of shameful crimes were executed in this way. So who first had the idea that you sacrificed people to the gods by pushing them into bogs? Some modern historian or archaeologist, I suspect.

 

I say this because I have seen a school textbook from the era (are we still in it?) when schoolchildren had to do history by studying the evidence and reaching their own conclusions. A great idea, but the textbook I saw shamelessly slanted the quotations from Tacitus etc. so that they proved human sacrifice was involved in bog burials. If you look at the real texts, they don't say that at all. But give the kids the slanted evidence, and they'll all reach the conclusions you want them to. 100 per cent success.

[Pertinax]

This is an aside to the thread but I must mention it in the context of the "preserving" abilities of the environment, the best shoe leather from Eire is Croaghan Bog Leather -wonderfully supple and durable and of an exquisite colour -I only mention this as I had a pair of shoes made incorporating this most excellent product.

By the way Croaghan means "gadfly" . .

The chemical/environmental qualities of the bog were obviously fully understood by the Hibernian natives-a remark I may have faiked to make is that if the peson is inhumed in the bog the soul cannot depart the body-ie: beatitude is denied-worse than any torture to a believer.Inhumation after the departure of the soul though would not be such a dreadful event..

 

thanks for the link Doco

Edited February 26, 2006 by Pertinax

[M. Porcius Cato]

I say this because I have seen a school textbook from the era (are we still in it?) when schoolchildren had to do history by studying the evidence and reaching their own conclusions. A great idea, but the textbook I saw shamelessly slanted the quotations from Tacitus etc. so that they proved human sacrifice was involved in bog burials. If you look at the real texts, they don't say that at all. But give the kids the slanted evidence, and they'll all reach the conclusions you want them to. 100 per cent success.

 

What's interesting about this bit of slanting is that it (as far as I can tell) has absolutely no political or moral lesson associated with it. It's as if the teachers want conformity of opinion for its own sake. Disgusting.

[Pantagathus]

Based on docoflove1974's post(s) and her clarification of the dating I'm going to throw a curve ball into the discussion...

 

There is no just reason to attempt to find the answers about the death of the bog bodies within the study of continental Celts' behavior as left to us from men who lived ~100-200 years later. Need I remind everyone that most evidence points to the fact that Celts didn't migrate to Ireland until after ~400ish BC so one can conclude that we should be looking more at the pre-Celtic Irish population for insight.

 

**i.e. the same folks who left such a rich archeological record of elaborate gold work dating from the Atlantic Bronze Age and who seemed to have had much in common culturally with the rest of the Atlantic seaboard populations all the way to Iberia.**

 

That being said, going by the archaeological record (see Barry Cunliffe's "Facing the Ocean") there seems to have been a cultural connection between these pre-Celtic Irish and the people near the Tagus river (modern Portugal) which would eventually be known as the Lusitanians.

 

Now, if you then look at what we are told about them by Strabo (from Posidenous' 1st hand observations) they made a habit of the ritual sacrifice involving war captives & the like where they would disembowel the victim and their diviners would then interpret the will of the Gods based on how the body writhed and the guts & blood fell.

 

So in my view, the bodies that are of the most intrest to docoflove1974 could very well have been victims of this sort of practice. So, Celtic victims from the wars that had to have been fought between the non-Celtic population & the Celtic invaders perhaps...

 

Edited for gender correction!

Edited February 27, 2006 by Pantagathus

[docoflove1974]

I gotta get a different av...one that shows that I'm a chick

[M. Porcius Cato]

Now, if you then look at what we are told about them by Strabo (from Posidenous' 1st hand observations) they made a habit of the ritual sacrifice involving war captives & the like where they would disembowel the victim and their diviners would then interpret the will of the Gods based on how the body writhed and the guts & blood fell.

 

This explanation fits the Weerdinge men (who were gutted), but no one else. Perhaps there was more variation to Celt practices than known to Strabo?

[Pantagathus]

I gotta get a different av...one that shows that I'm a chick

 

By Jove! My deepest apologies for making an incorrect assumption... :bag:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[docoflove1974]

By Jove! My deepest apologies for making an incorrect assumption... :bag:

 

 

Eh, it's all good...I have one of Minerva that I want up, but the *(&(!@#$$ site won't let me upload it, for whatever reason, I don't know. It's the right size! And I'd go in the running for Mrs. UNRV, but I'm still working on my bikini shape :giggle:

 

Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread...

Edited February 27, 2006 by docoflove1974

[Pantagathus]

This explanation fits the Weerdinge men (who were gutted), but no one else. Perhaps there was more variation to Celt practices than known to Strabo?

 

I'd have to look at the untranslated words he uses. It could very well have meant any sort or ritual mutilation. In that sense, slowly cutting off someones arm could have had the same effect for the diviners as cutting someone's guts out.

 

As I first learned reading Norman Brown's Hermes the Thief, understanding the semantics of the roots words used can totally open up new understandings of seemingly boring terms.