The Red Franz

In November 1900, a male body was found in the Bourtanger Moor near Meppen. The dead man was naked. He had a small moustache above his upper lip. His chin and cheeks were covered with dense, coarse, short stubble. The hair on the sides of the back of his head had been cut evenly short. The hair on the crown seemed rather thin. The hair at the front and temples was between 11 and 20 cm long. The scalp had shrunk considerably, and some of his teeth were missing. Soft tissue and traces of skin were still preserved on the head and torso of the adult man. His chin, moustache and cheek beard, as well as his head and pubic hair, could also be seen. The man had been dead for 1,700 years. He was a bog body. The man may have been violently drowned in the bog sometime in the 3rd or 4th century AD. Perhaps he had committed a serious crime and was cruelly drowned as punishment. But his death may also have had other causes. Over the centuries, the bog water turned the dead man's hair red. Because of this color, he was called the "Red Franz." The bog contains a decay-inhibiting acid called humic acid. It preserved the bodies of people who died in the bog. Their clothing and equipment were also well preserved. They tell modern researchers a great deal about life in earlier times. The "Red Franz" is now in the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover. Another famous bog body is the Tollund Man. He was found in a bog in Denmark. His head is blackened and his nose is slightly crooked. Otherwise, he looks as if he were asleep. His mouth is closed, and every crease in his face has been preserved. But the man has been dead for about 2,400 years. To date, more than 1,000 bog bodies have been found in the bogs of northern Europe.

Image: Axel Hindemith, License: CC BY-SA 3.0