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Article Excerpt
ON OCTOBER 20, 1835, a mummified corpse of a woman was found in Haraldskjaer Bog in the eastern part of Denmark. The body was swollen and blackened by the peat water, the hair dyed red-brown from the ferruginous properties in the bog. In a forensic report by the district physician from Vejle, J.F. Christens, published the year after the find, we hear that the body is that of a rather corpulent middle-aged woman with good, but well-worn teeth, large breasts, clearly visible nipples, and long thick hair. The hands and feet were fine and small, "neppe tillhorende en Person afden arbeidende Klasse" (Christens 166) [hardly belonging to someone of the working class]. Her manner of death seems to have been violent. She was, Christens writes, "sandsynligen levende nedpaelet i Mudderet" [probably nailed into the mud while still alive] since "Ansigtstraekkene, hvilke strax efter Optagelsen naesten tydelig kunde kjendes at vaere fortvivlede" (165) [her facial expression immediately after the exhumation could almost clearly be seen as despair].
Although Christens's description reveals some uncertainty as to how to read the body, his observation and particularly his use of the word fortvivlelse [despair] would echo in most writings on the Haraldskjaer bog-body from this point on. Otherwise abstemious in tone, the report prudently lays out the gradual process of dehydration and subsequent shriveling of the body, the coloring and preservation done by the bog water, various dimensions, and internal organs--or lack thereof. He concludes that "Maaden, paa hvilken Liget saa omhyggelig og moisommelig var nedpakket, synes ligeledes at vidne om noget Overordendigt, og har neppe vaeret eet eller to Menneskers Foretagende i en kort Tid" (ved Oldsag-Committeen 168) [the deliberate and meticulous way in which the corpse was wrapped seems to bear witness to something extraordinary, and he determines that the deed was hardly possible for one or two people to complete in any short period of time]. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the woman's death, the anguished face, the naked body--still voluptuous when found--soon made her a celebrity both in Denmark and abroad and would spark popular, literary and archaeological imagination for decades, even centuries to come.
Christens's forensic report was not the first to depict the bog-body. Just a few days after the discovery, on October 30, the local newspaper Vejle Amts Avis og Advertissementtidende published an article in which it was described as a strange, almost mummy-like corpse with leathery skin, clearly visible genitalia and breasts, and a well-preserved skull. We learn about the interrogation held the day after the discovery, where the authorities determined that the corpse was unrecognizable, indeed unidentifiable. The "regretable conclusion" was that it represented a victim of an act of violence committed many years ago. Kept in the morgue at the local hospital, the body underwent a thorough examination and the newspaper promised to keep the public informed if or when new information came forth (see Hvass 8).
Although bog-bodies were a known phenomenon before 1835, most of the previous finds were either quickly re-buried or were less intact. The Haraldskjaer body was the first bog-body in Denmark to remain fully preserved after its discovery; moreover it would prove to be an excellent test case for how to differentiate between ancient material remains and literary interpretation in the first part of the nineteenth century. Competing explanations of the body soon found their way to the pages of newspapers and scholarly journals and would not only bring to the fore differences between literary and archaeological interpretative models, but also point to an important moment at the inception of archaeology as a professional discipline separate from that of history or literature. Although antiquarianism, pre-professional archaeological activity, had been practiced for centuries (particularly from the Renaissance and on), archaeological textbooks today regard the early nineteenth century as a key moment, with Danish scholars as key players, in the foundation and inauguration of archaeology as a discipline proper. The fact that the Haraldskjaer bog-body can be found at the center of this discussion is an astonishing, but overlooked, fact.
A STORY or IDENTITY: LITERARY EVIDENCE
Our story begins when N.M. Petersen (1791-1862), a philologist and historian, identified the bog-body as the Norwegian Queen Gunhild. (2) According to tradition, Gunhild had been lured to Denmark by King Harald Bluetooth (approximately 910-87 AD) to become his wife, only to be drowned in the bog around the year 970. Known to be cunning, power-hungry, and untrustworthy, Gunhild led a dramatic life. In the words of P.V. Glob, "Historical sources describe Gunhild as a beauty, refer to her love of pomp, and characterize her as shrewd, witty, clever, merry and eloquent, friendly and open-handed to everyone who would do what she wanted, but cruel, false, malevolent and cunning if anyone crossed her. She seems also to have been dissolute and domineering to a high degree" (Glob 70).
Petersen based his interpretation of the bog-body on Jomsvikinga saga and other written sources and on an etymological analysis of the place names in the area of the find. To him, and in the tradition of antiquarian interpretative traditions of the time, the bog-body was historically explicable as a character, whose life was already known and whose fate had already been written.3 Key in Petersen's reasoning was the location of the find:
Til at bestemme Dronning Gunhildes Endeligt er Navnet paa den Mose, i hvilken hun skal vaere nedsaenket eller druknet, af saerdeles Vigtighed. Da den laa i Naerheden af Kongens Saede, saa kan den kun soges paa to Steder i Danmark, enten i Naerheden af Lejre i Sjaelland, eller i Naerheden af Jellinge i Jylland. Det sidste har Rimelighed for sig, da det er bekjendt, at Harald opholdt sig meget i denne Egn, ja endog skal have anlagt Haraldskjaer ... Ved Vejle er i en Mose fundet et Lig, voldsom nedsaenket, nedpaelet, med Fortvivlelsens Praeg paa sit Aasyn efter en lang Aaraekkes Forlob; det er kvindeligt; deter ifort en kostbar Dragt, som ikke henhorer til vore Tider; det har ligget umindelig Tid, kort, alle Omstaendigheder vise, at det kunde vore den norske Dronnings. (Petersen "Udsigt" 102-3)
(In order to account for Queen Gunhild's demise, the name of the bog in which she is said to have been submerged or drowned is of the utmost importance. Since it was located near the king's residence, it can only be sought in two locations in Denmark, either near Lejre on Sjaelland or near Jellinge in Jutland. The latter is more likely since it is well known that Harald often resided in this area, indeed, even founded Haraldskjaer.... Near Vejle a corpse has been found in a bog, brutally submerged, staked down, with the mark of despair on its visage after many long years; it is female; it is dressed in costly apparel, which is not characteristic of the present time; it has been there since time immemorial, in short, all circumstances show, that this could be the Norwegian Queen.)
This interpretation soon took hold in the public imagination not least due to the thrilling prospect that here was a body, which had returned from the dead to speak visually about past passions and crimes--amongst the royals. But Petersen's thoughts, first presented in short newspaper articles, later fleshed out in a longer article, were seen by some of his contemporaries as speculative and unscientific. And indeed, Petersen's writing was marked by a proclivity for the fictitious. As a young man he had hoped to become a poet but had failed, and his writing on history, geography, mythology, and language did not prepare him for analysis of material remains. Instead, he held on to a literary commitment against the new archaeological interests in material objects. (4) As such, his interpretation would eventually open him up for attacks.
Petersen, it turned out, was curiously uninterested in the material remains of the bog-body, and he admits that he never examined it face-to-face. Concerned with etymology, myths, and stories, he provides instead different versions of Gunhild's fate: we hear about the intricate plots surrounding the Queen and her contemporaries, the suspenseful build-up to her murder, the romances, and the deceits. To Petersen, the body from the bog was a body in writing. In fact, he only knew it--in writing. After the sensational news about the find reached him, he gathered material from the public, mostly in the form of letters. As early as November 6, 1835, he published an article in a Copenhagen newspaper, Dagen, in which he proposed, albeit cautiously, that the body could be a historically significant find. He asks the public for further information: details about the location, about artifacts. Was there any jewelry? What was the position of the stakes? What about place names? Was there or had there ever been a bog named Gunhildsmose, Gunildsmyr, Gunildskjaer in proximity to the find? The information, he received seemed to confirm what Petersen already suspected. The bog was called Gunhildsmose, the stakes went through the body; local peasants believed the bog to be haunted. This information allowed him to connect the historical and archaeological dots and conclude that the body was most likely that of the Norwegian Queen mother from the Viking age (see Hvass 11-12). His short article was widely read and no doubt reached more readers than did his later, longer, more scholarly, though equally imaginative, interpretation "Udsigt over den Norske Dronning Gunhildes Levnet" [View over the Life of the Norwegian Queen Gunilde] published in Annaler 1836-37 (see Hvass 18; see also Sanden 41).
On December 22, 1835, however, Vejle Amts Avis og Advertissementtidende brought out news, based on the information provided by the local apothecary and innkeeper A.F.A. Lassen (1787-1875), which would both correct some of Petersen's first assumptions--and add new mystery. The stakes were not placed over the body; the bog was not called Gunhildsmose, but Hjutsmose or Gutsmose; and the search for possible artifacts like jewelry had to be postponed until the weather allowed further excavations to take place. Legends about haunted bogs existed in various forms in the Haraldskjaer bog area, and finally, although the court had advised that no one was missing, rumors in the area told of a girl, a lace-worker, possible a stranger from Tonder in the southern part of Denmark, who could easily have been killed without anyone missing her.
While these rumors and speculations continued, the body itself had been moved to the local hospital and thoroughly examined by Dr. Christens. Here it soon started to deteriorate. The color changed, it became dehydrated and shrunk into an emaciated state. The artifacts, such as hair, clothes fragments, and stakes were moved to The National Museum in Copenhagen. Professor J.G. Forchhammer from Copenhagen University, who examined the hair, and E. Wilkens from the Polytekniske Laereanstalt, who studied the clothes fragments, examined the body and the results were cited in the report published under the auspices of the Oldsag-Committee in Annaler 1836-37.
Yet, even here Petersen's Queen-interpretation left its mark. In fact, the analysis of the body and the artifacts were published in the same volume, indeed immediately following Petersen's "View of the Life of the Norwegian Queen Gunilde," and the first punctilious description of any bog-body in Denmark would conclude: "vi troe meal Grund" [we have reason to believe] that the bog-body belongs to the end of the Pagan period, "omtrent til Dronning Gunnilds Tidsalder." (ved Oldsag-Comitteen 171, 173) [approximately to the time of Queen Gunnild]. This conclusion, consistent with the Petersen-interpretation, was drawn in part from the proximity of the bog find to Jellinge, the presumed seat of King Harald Bluetooth, and of the dating of artifacts from burial mounds in the area (veal Oldsag-Comitteen 173). (5)
In spite of the serendipitous conclusion, the Oldsag-Committee report is concise and rather detailed with two simple illustrations of fibers from the cloth fragments. It opens conventionally with a presentation of the landscape and location coupled with a linguistic discussion of place names. We are furnished with a narration of the discovery, followed by a detailed description of the body and the various objects attached to it, like hair, clothes fragments etc. The popular belief, that stakes were hammered through the dead "efter Fortids Skik for at hindre Dode, isaer saadanne sona ansaaes for Trolde og Hexe, fra at gaae igjen" [following ancient customs to prevent the dead from returning, particularly those that were assumed to be trolls or witches] are briefly mentioned. But the article calls for attentiveness to detail, since "det har dog ved noiere Undersogelse ikke stadfaeset sig at den [the stake] har her vaeret saaledes anvendt, eftersom Legemet ikke paa dette Sted har Beskadigelser, der vilde have vaeret forvoldte ved en saadan Fremgangsmaade" (ved Oldsag-Committeen 164) [closer examination has not been able to show that it [the stake] was used in such a fashion since the body has not sustained injuries in the places that would be expected from such a procedure].
This note of caution was, however, blatantly overlooked in the popular press. In an article in the widely read popular magazine Morskabslaesning for Den Danske Almue [Light Reading for the Danish Public] on March 8, 1839, called "The Excavated Corpse," the body was described as that of a witch, while alive, and as that of a specter, when dead.
Enhver Almuemand gjenkender lettelig her et Lig, som i levende Live maa have vaeret anseet for at vaere en Hex, man harvillet hindre i at gaae igjen efter sin Dod. Mangen En har enten selv seet, eller hort gamle Folk tale om Paele, staaende hist og her, som ere nedrammede i aeldre Tider, efterat Gjengangere forst er blevne nedmanede af Maend, som dertil troedes at have Evne, naar de laeste for Gjengangeren af hemmelige Boger. (Morskabslaesning 18)
(Every peasant easily recognizes here a corpse of someone, who while alive must hare been seen as a witch, someone whom one wanted to prevent from surfacing after her death. Many have either seen for themselves or heard old folks talk about, stakes, which stood here and there, rammed into the ground in olden days, after revenants had been driven into the ground by men, who were believed to have powers, when they read to the revenants from secret books.)
Morskabslaesning [Light Reading], it goes without saying, found a larger reading audience than did the more academic Oldsag-Committee report. The report itself, however, did not lack flair for the spine tingling and sensational. The following passage is clearly narrated with an eye for drama and suspense and worth citing in full:
Den 20de October 1835 vare nogle Arbeidsmaend beskjaeftigede med at grave en Skjelgroft gjennem denne Mose, da den ene af dem i en Dybde af 1 1/2 Alen under Jordens Overflade bemaerkede en Arm og en Fod af et menneskeligt Legeme. Da der ikke var Leilighed til samme Dag at foretage videre Undersogelse, opsattes saadan til den folgende. Man begyndte nu at traekke i de alt bemaerkede Lemmer, men kunne ikke faa Liget rykket op, og begreb i Forstningen ikke Grunden til, at det kunne ligge saa fast i det blode Torvemudder, indtil man ved at grave omkring og undersoge det naermere, bemaerkede, at der var faestet ned i Mudderet med Traekroge, een taet ovenfor hvert Knaeled, og een ligeledes ovenfor hvert Albueled, samt endvidere med tvende staerke afbrudte Grene som Tvaerboiler, den ene over Brystet og den anden over Underlivet, saaledes anbragte, at Legemet derved holdtes nedad, med Hovedet vendt mod Ost og Fodderne mod Vest. Da disse Kroge og Grene vare losnede, optoges Liget, som befandtes at vaere af en Kvinde og velbevaret. Som naturligt, taenkte Almuemaendene sig her en skjult Forbrydelse, og sogte at bringe dem i Forbindelse med Rygtet om en saadan, der skulde vaere skeet i eller kort for deres Tid; men da man noiere undersogte Klaedningsstykkerne, som dog kun i Fragmenter optoges, saavelsom selve Liget, der var gaaet over i en mumieagtig Tilstand, blev der tydeligt at dette sikkert i mange Aarhundreder havde ligget skjult paa Stedet. (ved Oldsag-Committeen 160).
(On the 20th of October 1835, some workers were occupied with the digging of a ditch [Skjelgroft] through this bog, when one of them discovered an arm and a leg of a human body under the soil at a depth of 1 1/2 Alen. Since it was not possible to...
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