Meeting the Bog Bodies

Page 2 of 10

• 1. Discovering the bog bodies
• 2. National Museum of Ireland
• 3. Examining the bodies
• 4. Dramatising the past
• 5. Filming the reconstruction
• 6. The bodies in context
• 7. Unlocking secrets of the Iron Age
• 8. Preserving Oldcroghan Man
• 9. Clonycavan Man
• 10. Find out more
• Print entire article

National Museum of Ireland

The bodies are removed from the huge fridge in the museum's Conservation Department, just opposite the Guinness brewery. They are indeed almost the colour of Guinness - tanned deep brown by the peat in the bog - but they are both very different.

Despite being exposed to the air, there is no smell whatsoever from either of the bodies. The much smaller Clonycavan Man is not in such good condition, although he has retained his head.

'It's weird looking into the face of a man you know has been dead for hundreds - if not thousands of years'

You can see his ears, eyes, mouth, a blackened tooth, coarse stubble on his top lip and a huge mass of peat-encrusted hair. It's weird looking into the face of a man you know has been dead for hundreds - if not thousands of years.

No-one knows the age of the bodies. There is a history of bog bodies coming from the Iron Age, but the museum also has one from the end of the 16th century in its collection. If at least one of the bodies was from the Iron Age, then this would be huge news for the Dublin team.

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Published: 2006-01-12