ABSTRACT
Bog bodies are a widespread phenomenon in northern and western Europe. Hundreds of bodies have been recorded from the peat bogs in Germany and Denmark in particular, with other examples known from all of the other countries of the north and west. A particularly evocative discovery was made at Windeby in north Germany, which casts some light upon the whole assembly of death that we are witnessing in this region in the few centuries before and after the birth of Christ. The bodies are often differentially preserved by particular chemical conditions in the bog. The excavations at Windeby revealed a group of heavy branches, forked sticks and a large stone which were a part of the act of deposition. The Jelling woman and the Windeby girl may have met death in the same way—pinned into a bog pool and drowned, for there was no sign of a wound or strangulation on the Windeby girl.
