Bron 15
Over de Lindow man
When the
scientists explored Lindow Man's interior cavity,
looking for any signs of disease, they were pleased to
find that his stomach had not decayed. It contained
something like brown mud, the remnants of the last meal
he had eaten. Because they found only twenty grams of
partially digested food, the scientists concluded that
Lindow Man's last meal was really more of a snack. It
consisted mostly of cereal grains, but something that he
ate was burnt. They wondered, was it bread or gruel?
Although no one can be certain, they believe that his
meal consisted in part of some charred bread (though he
could have had some scorched gruel, too).
They also
found evidence of pollen from a mistletoe plant in his
stomach. If it came from a flower, this would allow
scientists to place his death in March or April. If it
was dried pollen, added as an ingredient to his dinner,
then the time of his death is harder to place.
Archaeologist Anne Ross thinks she knows what happened
to Lindow Man. When the Romans invaded Britain, they
conquered the local tribes of Celts and wrote a number
of accounts describing Celtic ceremonies and practices,
many of which struck them as barbaric. In one festival,
called Beltain, which was held on May 1, a victim was
selected for sacrifice to make sure that the summer's
crops would be successful.
Here's
how historians believe the festival was celebrated: a
bonfire was lit on top of a hill. In it, an oatmeal
cake, called a bannock, was baked and a small portion of
it charred. The bannock was then broken into small
pieces and put in a bag. The person who chose the burnt
piece of bannock became the sacrificial victim. Ross
believes that Lindow Man was a Beltain sacrifice.
Historians, though, have pointed
out that the victim selected during Beltain was almost
always burned in the bonfire. So how, if Lindow Man was
a Beltain victim, did he escape the fire and find his
way to the bog?
According to Ross, the Celts
considered the number three holy. They had three gods:
Taranis, the god of thunder; Esus, the god of the
underworld; and Teutates, the god of the tribe. Each
required a specific type of sacrifice. Ross explains:
Taranis required prisoners of war to be burnt alive
in giant wicker cages, while Esus was offered
victims who were either hanged from sacred trees or
stabbed to death or both. Teutates, however, took
his sacrifices into a watery embrace in the sacred
wells and pools that always figured very strongly
among Celtic holy sites.
Instead of sacrificing three
individuals, the Celts sometimes sacrificed one person
to please all three gods. This could have been the case
with Lindow Man. First, he was sacrificed to Taranis.
Although normally involving fire, sacrifices to Taranis
were also made with the use of a weapon. In the case of
Lindow Man, the three blows to his skull, writes Ross,
were "delivered with the sudden awful force of a
thunderbolt, the mark of Taranis." Second, he was
sacrificed to Esus when he was strangled and his throat
cut. Third, he was sacrificed to Teutates when he was
placed in the bog and drowned.
But who
was Lindow Man, and why was he sacrificed in such an
elaborate ceremony? Although victims might have been
sacrificed occasionally, they were not usually killed
the way Lindow Man was. Had it simply been the bad luck
of selecting the charred piece of bannock? Or was more
involved?
Ross
concludes that he was either a Celtic priest, otherwise
known as a Druid, or a king. Because his hands were free
from calluses and his body had not previously been
injured, he was neither a laborer nor a warrior. He was
clearly an important man - not the type of person
routinely sacrificed.
Ross guesses that the invasion of
the Romans in A.D. 43 may have caused the Celts to take
the dramatic step of sacrificing an extremely important
individual in their attempt to appease the gods and
thwart the Romans. In fact, she goes so far as to place
his death in A.D. 60, after the Romans had attempted to
wipe out all traces of the Celts and the Druids. She
believes that Lindow Man may even have chosen to die
himself in order "to stave off the Roman threat."
Whether or not Ross's speculations are correct, they
provide an interesting theory. They also show how much -
and how little - scientists can learn from a mummy's
tummy.
Bron:
Lindow man; mummy from the bog
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