"Bernie" - Die Moorleiche von Bernuthsfeld

In 1907, a fully clothed, but skeletonised male bog body was found during peat cutting in Hogehahn Bog in Bernuthsfeld near Tannenhausen, distr. Aurich. Initially, the finders reburied the corpse for fear of criminal prosecution, later it was subjected to changing scientific methods and goals. Since 2011, the bog body has been reinvestigated in the context of a German-Dutch exhibition project with manifold modern archaeological, natural scientific, and medical methods of analysis. The resulting palaeobiography revealed that we are dealing with a right-handed and right-footed male at least 1.60-1.70 m tall and of a normal to slim constitution. He died in the years between A.D. 660 and 770 at an age of some 30-40 years and had suffered from various diseases and injuries during his lifetime. He had eaten a diet based on much freshwater fish and wore one of the most completely preserved Early Medieval costumes found to date. This consisted of a knee-length patchwork tunic, a hood, a square scarf, a fringed blanket worn as a cloak, two long woollen bandages [puttees ?], other textile and leather objects, and a wooden stick.