The Tollund Man is the naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the time period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950 buried in a peat bog on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, which preserved his body. Such a find is known as a bog body. Tollund Man, and in particular the head and face, was so well-preserved that at the time of discovery he was mistaken for a recently deceased murder victim.
On May 8, 1950, Viggo and Emil Højgaard from the small village of Tollund were cutting peat for their stove in the Bjældskor Dale peat bog, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of Silkeborg, Denmark.As they worked, they noticed in the peat layer a face so fresh that they could only assume that they had discovered a recent murder victim, and notified the police at Silkeborg. The police were baffled by the body, and in an attempt to identify the time of death, they brought in archaeology professor P. V. Glob. Glob determined that the body was over two thousand years old, most likely murdered, and thrown into the bog as a sacrifice to fertility goddesses.
The Tollund Man lay 50 meters (164 ft) away from firm ground, buried under approximately 2 meters (7 ft) of peat, his body arranged in a fetal position. He wore a pointed skin cap fastened securely under his chin by a hide thong. There was a smooth hide belt around his waist. Additionally, the corpse had a garrote made of hide drawn tight around the neck, and trailing down his back.
