The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved

Peter Vilhelm Glob

New York Review of Books, 2004 - History - 200 pages

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 bog as a sacrifice to the goddess of fertility.

Written in the guise of a scientific detective 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.

Includes 76 black-and-white photographs.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - ToddSherman - LibraryThing

“ . . . when she has had her fill of the society of mortals.” I meant this to be a break from the absurd, horror, and roman-era literature I’d been researching for upcoming projects. Well, true to ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - JBD1 - LibraryThing

I read the NYRB reprint of this riveting account of the European "Bog People." Well written, and the narrative is superbly complemented by the photographs.

Contents

• An Answer to a Letter: 15
• The Grauballe Man: 37
• Bog People in Denmark: 63
• Bog People in Other Countries: 101
• How They Lived: 119
• When Death Came: 144

About the author

P.V. Glob (1911-1985) was the Director General of Museums and Antiquities for the State of Denmark and Director of the National Museum in Copenhagen. Although his professional interest took him from Greenland to the Arabian Gulf, his most sustained study was of his native country. In addition to The Bog People, Glob published numerous anthropological works including Denmark: An Archaeological History from the Stone Age to the Vikings and Mound People: Danish Bronze-Age Man Preserved.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968. Her research and publications focus on various aspects of anthropology and language. She teaches archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College.

Paul T. Barber received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968. He is a research associate at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved; New York Review Books classics
• Author: Peter Vilhelm Glob
• Contributors: Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Paul Barber
• Edition: illustrated, revised
• Publisher: New York Review of Books, 2004
• ISBN: 1590170903, 9781590170908
• Length: 200 pages
• Subjects: History / Ancient / General; History / Social History; Social Science / Anthropology / General