Scottish peat bogs were known as natural mummifiers to local residents thousands of years ago. But one gravesite on a small island has turned up an even weirder practice right out of Mary Shelley’s classic novel:
Slashgear — Yes, you just read that right, there are indeed mummies being discovered off the coast of Scotland that are made up of the body parts (or at least the bones) of multiple humans, making them the living embodiment of the classic Frankenstein monster. It’s not often that one finds a body buried with a jawbone that’s taken from a different body than the skull that its attached to, and the scientists that are working with the bodies that’ve been discovered this past month have certainly never come across cases as strange as these before.
This doesn’t sound like a spur of the moment deal, it was elaborate. Researchers believe the corpses were first placed in bogs and mummified, then buried months or years later. Somewhere along the way limbs and even skull parts were switched out for reasons unknown. But it seems a safe bet, to me, there were some strange late Neolithic after-life beliefs involved.
My first thought was maybe a neolithic serial killer with weird fetish.
I’d really love to know what beliefs led to this practice. The fact that the bones weren’t maternally related intrigues me even more.
I wonder what the Frankenstein mummies looked like with their skin and soft tissues still intact? Were they sewn together? Tied together in a mummy bundle? Inquiring minds want to know! Either way, I think I feel a sculpture project coming on.
Probably the workers were annoyed about having to dig up bodies for the local leader, and did the switching, just to mess up whatever plans the leader had in mind.
So how are bones mummies? I get the whole general concept and know a bit about bog weirdness, I’m just wondering why one would call a collection of bones a mummy.
Why did they do this? Well, when we were moving the bodies to the permanent burial site, I discovered that the remains of both my wife and my father were missing bits, and we can’t have that in the afterlife. (It’s teh suck!) So I stole replacement parts from some of my neighbors’ dead to replace them. And I’m pretty sure they do this, too.
F;
The position the bones were found in showed that they had been mummies at the time of burial, and the flesh had decomposed after burial.
Forgot to add: the source I linked to says the bodies were mummified 300-500 years before burial, so perhaps bits of them deteriorated over time and had to be replaced.
Time for for granther’s 200 year tune up. I wonder if Autobone is open.
Bog bodies dated to over 200 years ago have been found right across northern Europe, Britain and Ireland: see here and here.
According to what I read, the sacrifices seem to have been associated with ensuring fertility and power over clan lands.
Oops! that should read “2000” years.
The 200 year old ones were just Grand-uncle Brian and his strange experiments. We won’t discuss him.
I’m not ruling out drunken Neolithic teenagers…
Also, another article I read noted that the bones had holes drilled through them, indicating that they’d been somehow tied into position by some form of cord.
My inner creepy twelve year old is just going “cooooooooooooooooooooool.”