Old+Croghan+Man+and+Cloneycavan+Man

media type="custom" key="10176981" align="center"

**OLD CROGHAN MAN **AND ** CLONYCAVAN MAN ** //UNCOVERING THE PAST// media type="file" key="I Wanna Be Your Gog.mp3" align="center" width="240" height="20"

Click to play. By: Stephanie and Kavya





   **Discovery**  In 2003 the bog body of Clonycavan Man was spotted in the industrial size seive of a peat processing plant. Clonycavan Man was naked; his head wrenched sharpley to the left, his legs and lower arms missing wripped away by the machine that had dug him from a bog in the Irish town of Clonycavan, hence his name. Three months after Clonycavan Man came to light another ancient bog body named by scientisets as Old Coghan Man fell from the bucket of a backhoe digging in a bog 40 kilometres away in Old Croghan. Old Croghan Man had once stood almost 2 metres tall, but only his torso and arms remained. 

  **The State and Type of Preservation** Both Clonycavan Man and Old Croghan Man were preserved in bogs. Old Croghan Man was preserved so perfectly that his discovery started a police murder investigation, before archaeologists were called in. <span style="color: #991e1e; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 18px; text-align: left;">**What Science and Archaeology Reveal About the Their Appearances** Scientist and archaeoligists believe that both Old Croghan Man and Clonycavan man were killed in their early 20s based on their skelital strucure. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Scientists were able to estimate Old Croghan Man's and Clonycavan Man's heights based off their arm spans. They estimated that Old Croghan Man was around 198 cm tall, while Clonycavan Man, was only 157 cm tall.

Scientists also tested Clonycavan Man's hair and found that he used an early form of hair gel. They were also able to find that Old Croghan Man "Had very well manicured nails" as said by Isabella Mulhall, the Bog Bodies Project coordinator.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Scientists working on the bog bodies Project, were able to reveal that Oldcroghan man's last meal consisted of buttermilk and cereals. <span style="color: #991e1e; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 18px; text-align: left;">**What evidence reveals about lifestyle and times** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 14px;">Scientific method Radiocarbon dating shows that the two men lived in the Iron Age. Clonycavan Man died around 392 - 201 B.C whilst Old Croghan man died around 362 - 175 B.C

Both Clonycavan and Old Croghan were proved to be young, with few signs of physical labor during their lives, and were healthy at the time of their deaths.

By examining chemical traces in Clonycavan Man’s hair, scholars from the National Museum of Ireland concluded that Clonycavan Man’s diet was rich in vegetables hence concluding that he was killed in the summer or early fall when fresh produce would have been available. His hair also created much interest for both scholars and the public due to unusual way it was twisted over his head and held in place with gel made of plant oil and pine resin. Some people called it the world’s first mohawk. These ingredients were imported from France or southwestern Spain, suggesting that Clonycavan Man himself, or the people who sacrificed him, were trading with the Continent.

Old Croghan Man’s was stood almost six and a half feet. Analysis of his hair and nails showed that he regularly ate meat, a known luxury of the time. Ironically, his last supper was composed of cereals and buttermilk, which scholar Ned Kelly believes was a ritual meal. Around one bicep, he had a braided leather armband and a bronze amulet covered in decorative copper-alloy mounts.

Examining the details of both men’s lives and deaths has led Kelly to suggest a new way of looking at the meaning of other Irish bog bodies. “I believe these men were failed kings or failed candidates for kingship who were killed and placed in bogs that formed important tribal boundaries. Both Clonycavan and Old Croghan men’s nipples were pinched and cut. “Sucking a king’s nipples was a gesture of submission in ancient Ireland,” says Kelly. “Cutting them would have made him incapable of kingship.” The bodies served as offerings to the goddess of the land to whom the king was wed in his inauguration ceremony. According to Kelly, both men’s multiple injuries may reflect the belief that the goddess was not only one of the land and fertility, but also of sovereignty, war, and death. “By using a range of methods to kill the victim, the ancient Irish sacrificed to the goddess in all her forms,” he says.

<span style="color: #991e1e; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 18px;">**What science and archaeology reveal about the cause and manner of death** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 14px;">Examinations of the bodies showed that both men appear to have been “killed” three times: by strangulation, by stabbing and by drowning. The studies showed that Old Croghan Man was bound with hazel rods threaded through holes in his upper arms, stabbed in the chest, struck in the neck, decapitated and cut in half. (All that has been found are his torso and arms.) Eamonn Kelly, from the National Museum of Ireland, said “isn’t done for torture or to inflict pain. It’s a triple killing because the goddess to whom the sacrifice is made has three natures. She’s goddess of sovereignty, of fertility and of war and death. So they’re making sacrifice to her in all her forms, and the king has to die three deaths.”

The slicing of both men's nipples made the archaeologists conclude that both men had been killed for ritual reasons and that they were royal, because in ancient times the kissing of a king's nipples was seen as a mark of respect, or an act of submission. "Cutting these men's nipples would have prevented them from ruling as kings in this life -- or the next," Mr Kelly explains. He believes, they were very possibly kings, or at least failed candidates for kingship. Kelly said "The king was so important that he needed to be killed three times. These men weren't set on fire but their multiple injuries may suggest that these men were being sacrificed to the goddess in all her forms -- the goddess of fertility, the goddess of war and the goddess of sovereignty." <span style="color: #991e1e; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">**For further information:**

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">Visit these websites
 * []
 * []
 * []
 * []
 * []

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 14px;">Watch **Timewatch**'s 'Meeting the Bog Bodies'.

media type="custom" key="10176395" align="left" width="144" height="144"

<span style="color: #991e1e; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">**Activities** <span style="color: #991e1e; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">**Solutions**

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">find a word