Social:Braak Bog Figures

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Appearance and dating

Carved from carefully selected naturally forked oak branches,[1] the figures are human-like and are 275 centimetres (108 in) (male) and 230 centimetres (91 in) (female) in height.[2] They have sockets for arms (the appendages are missing) and pebbles may have been used for their eyes.[3] The figures exhibit marked sexual dimorphism: in addition to the difference in height, the female has her hair in a topknot and the male has short hair with bangs,[1] and the sexual organs are emphasized.[4] The breasts of the female figure are "set in separately" and the male figure's genital had been "struck off".[2] The noses are also differentiated, but both have open mouths as if screaming.[1] Fires had repeatedly been built near the site of the find.[5]

The Braak figures are carbon dated to the 3rd to 2nd century BCE,[1] but have also been dated to the early 4th century BCE.[6] They are among several anthropomorphic wooden figures of varying form unearthed from the Neolithic and into the Middle Ages, in areas of Northern Europe ranging from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany to Norrland in Sweden.[7] The majority of these figures date to the Iron Age and the Roman period.[8] Of these, the Braak Bog Figures are the largest found in Germany,[6] and Malcolm Todd calls them the "most imposing".[4]

Interpretations

Fokke Sierksma commented in 1960 that as the figures were found together in a peat bog, near a pile of stones containing fragments of pottery and evidence of fire, these find circumstances "together with the considerable dimension of the figures, and the combination of a male and a female figure, make it virtually certain that they represent deities of Northern Germanic tribes. These located the residence of their gods in peat bogs, and regarded the sacred union of a fertility god and a fertility goddess as prerequisite for the continued propagation of life in all its forms".[2]

Hilda Ellis Davidson (1975) comments that these figures may represent a "Lord and Lady" of the Vanir, a group of Norse gods, and that "another memory of [these wooden figures] may survive in the tradition of the creation of Ask and Embla, the man and woman who founded the human race, created by the gods from trees on the seashore".[9] It is also possible to regard them as part of ancestor worship.[10][11]

Malcolm Todd (2009) comments that the Braak Bog Figures and other similar bog figures have a "significance [that is] difficult to determine but [they] should be related to the supra-mundane and perhaps specifically to the presiding deities of fertility and war".[4]

Current location and controversy

The Braak Bog Figures are in the Schleswig-Holstein state archaeology museum at Gottorf Castle. The post-war conservator there, Karl Schlabow, has been accused of over-restoring archaeological exhibits, including accentuating the sexual characteristics of the Braak figures.[12]

See also

  • Bog body, human bodies placed in peat bogs
  • Hörgr, attested in Old Norse sources as a pile of stones in North Germanic religious practice

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Aldhouse Green (2004:59–60).
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Sierksma (1960:168).
  3. ↑ Davidson (1988:17).
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Todd (2009:108).
  5. ↑ Aldhouse Green (2004:61).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Hansen (2010:34).
  7. ↑ Oldeberg (1957).
  8. ↑ See Davidson (1988:15-19) & Todd (2009:108).
  9. ↑ Davidson (1975:88—89).
  10. ↑ Capelle (1995:13).
  11. ↑ Freudenberg (2007:85).
  12. ↑ Brock (2007:2). See also Aldhouse Green (2004:60).

References

  • Aldhouse Green, Miranda J. (2004). An Archaeology of Images: Iconology and Cosmology in Iron Age and Roman Europe. Routledge. ISBN:9780415252539
  • Brock, Thomas (2007-02-17). "Windeby: Geheimnis der Moorleichen gelüftet". Der Spiegel. (in German)
  • Capelle, Torsten (1995). Anthropomorphe Holzidole in Mittel- und Nordeuropa. Scripta minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis, 1995/96, 1. Almqvist & Wiksell. ISBN:9789122017059 (in German)
  • Davidson, H. R. Ellis (1975). Scandinavian Mythology. Paul Hamlyn. ISBN:0-600-03637-5
  • Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis (1988). Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions. Manchester University Press. ISBN:9780719025792
  • Freudenberg, Mechthild (2007). "Tod und Jenseits. Ein Ausstellungsprojekt im Archäologischen Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf". In: Zweiundvierzig: Festschrift für Michael Gebühr zum 65. Geburtstag. Ed. Stefan Burmeister, Heidrun Derks and Jasper von Richthofen. Internationale Archäologie, Studia honoraria, 25. ISBN:9783896464255 (77–88) (in German)
  • Hansen, Svend (2010). "Archaeological Finds from Germany: Booklet to the Photographic Exhibition". Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Eurasien-Abteilung.
  • Oldeberg, Andreas (1957). "Några träidoler från förhistorisk och senare tid". Fornvännen 52, 247–58. (in Swedish) (German summary)
  • Sierksma, Fokke (G. E. van Baaren-Pape Trans.) (1960). The Gods as We Shape Them. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
  • Todd, Malcolm (2009). The Early Germans. 2nd edn. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN:9781405137560

Further reading

  • Van der Sanden, Wijnand, and Capelle, Torsten (2001). Mosens Guder: antropomorfe traefigurer fra Nord- og Nordvesteuropas fortid / Immortal Images: Ancient Anthropomorphic Wood Carvings from Northern and Northwest Europe. Silkeborg Museum. ISBN:9788788016819
  • Dietrich, Mirja. (2000). "Das Holzfigurenpaar und der 'Brandplatz' aus dem Aukamper Moor bei Braak, Kreis Ostholstein". Offa, 57, 145–230 (in German)

[ ⚑ ] 54°06′12″N 10°35′35″E / 54.1034°N 10.5931°E / 54.1034; 10.5931




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