Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination

This beautifully written book explores the Iron Age bog bodies of northern Europe as cultural artefacts, objects of fascination to archaeologists and antiquaries, but also to artists, poets, philosophers and psychologists. Sanders describes the wide range of responses which the bodies have produced from such diverse figures as Sigmund Freud, Seumus Heaney, William Carols Willams and Margaret Attwood. She is particularly strong on Scandinavian material, and with his miraculously preserved face Tollund man, has cast a long shadow in Danish art and culture. The violent sacrificial deaths of the bodies have obviously fired the imagination as has Tacitus' suggestion of punishment for infidelity, but Karin Sanders contends that it is the unique status of the bodies both as human beings and archaeological artefacts, somehow transformed by their remarkable preservation that has guaranteed such a profound and multifaceted response.

This beautifully written book explores the Iron Age bog bodies of northern Europe as cultural artefacts, objects of fascination to archaeologists and antiquaries, but also to artists, poets, philosophers and psychologists. Sanders describes the wide range of responses which the bodies have produced from such diverse figures as Sigmund Freud, Seumus Heaney, William Carols Willams and Margaret Attwood. She is particularly strong on Scandinavian material, and with his miraculously preserved face Tollund man, has cast a long shadow in Danish art and culture. The violent sacrificial deaths of the bodies have obviously fired the imagination as has Tacitus' suggestion of punishment for infidelity, but Karin Sanders contends that it is the unique status of the bodies both as human beings and archaeological artefacts, somehow transformed by their remarkable preservation that has guaranteed such a profound and multifaceted response.