FREE Education! The University of Southampton to launch MOOC

Not so much related to archaeology, but interesting nonetheless!

This coming September, the University of Southampton is launching its first ever MOOC or Massive Open Online Course. The idea of this is that anyone, living anywhere in the world, has access to the courses for free! To participate you do not need any previous knowledge of the subjects you may study - as long as you are keen and interested in learning something new, or wanting to get a taster for future studies, then it is just to get started!


Source: http://www.edudemic.com/2012/04/how-online-learning-is-shaping-the-future-of-education-right-now/

Sign up for the FutureLearn newsletter (all you need is an email address) today using this link. The courses will cover a range of subjects and will only require you to study for two to three hours per week. You can even choose not to complete the whole course, but instead only choose the topics that seem interesting to you.

You can find more information on this amazing opportunity by clicking the first link above! I personally can't wait to try this!

L

A Brief, Handy Guide to Bog Bodies

(n.b.: This post contains pictures of dead people! Although not gross in detail, I am warning you just to save you the shock)

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What's that? You want to learn about bog bodies? Then I shall educate you my dears!


Put very simply, bog bodies are bodies that have been naturally preserved in peat bogs; as well as most of the skin surviving, the internal organs, hair, nails, facial features and stomach contents usually survive too. This, however, is perhaps the best case scenario for a bog body; levels of preservation obviously differs from case to case. Some of the best known examples of bog bodies (famous for the high level of preservation), include the following...

Tollund Man

Lindow Man

Yde Girl

They make not look that well preserved, but they are, and it has meant that facial reconstructions can be made to recreate their life. But I shall tell you about the reconstructions later.


The Nitty Gritty
So why do these bodies survive so well? The conditions of a bog are quite particular; acidic, wet, cold and lacking in oxygen. This is, of course, a natural occurrence in bogs, but it is quite possibly the best place for a body to be preserved. It should be noted, though, that the bones do not usually survive in the process - hence the 'flattened' appearance of the bodies.


Why Are There So Many Bodies Found in Bogs?
Hundreds of bodies have been found in peat bogs across the world; dating from the Mesolithic to as recent as WWII (more on that later!). The excellent preservation enables us to work out why these bodies were put in the bogs.
From the evidence, there are three possibilities for bog bodies; burial, murder/ritual sacrifice, or an accidental death. Many have suffered violent deaths, which suggests murder or something similar; for example, the Huldremose Woman was found to have died from a large cut on her upper arm; the Tollund Man was found with rope around his neck, suggesting he had been hanged; and Grauballe Man had his throat sliced.

Similarly, Lindow Man was found with stab wounds and blunt force trauma to the head, suggesting an attack; it may well be that he had been killed (on purpose or by accident, we will never know) whilst out and about, and then his body was just 'dumped' in the bog. However, his nails were spectacularly manicured; this and the way he was killed has caused arguments among people; the most common theory is that he was ritually killed by Druids.

There are examples of bog bodies that suggest they were killed purely for their 'deformities'; Aschenbroken Man had a deformity in the arm (from abornormal healing after being broken previously); and Yde Girl had scoliosis (causing her to have a curved spine) and was only 4'7", despite being 16 years old.


History of Bog Bodies
The oldest bog body is thought to be the Laois Boy of Ireland, which was found 2 years ago, and is thought to be 4,000 years old. However, there is also the Koelbjerg Woman from Denmark, which dates to 8,000BC; only her bones survived, so it is debatable as to whether she counts as a bog body or not.

There have been other bodies found during the Prehistoric, but the majority date to the Iron Age; it seems these bodies from the Iron Age are mostly ritual sacrifices, due to them all having strange deaths.

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I am currently compiling an online timeline of most bog bodies found in the world, with a quick intro about each body, and a picture if their faces have been reconstructed. Keep your eyes peeled - it should be finished soon!

I will also most likely update this post sometime in the next few days as well - many more pictures and other cool stuff!


M


Extra Reading:
European Iron Age Bog Bodies
Archaeology Magazine Archive: Bog BodiesNational Geographic Gallery of Bog Bodies
Bones Don't Lie (blog): Bog Bodies
Tales From the Bog - Karen E. Lange - National Geographic

The Vasa - a 17th Century Swedish Warship

First of all, apologies for the lack of posts during these summer months! Between graduation, family visits and sorting out stuff for the coming year there is a distinct lack of free time at the moment, but it shall get better!

Last Saturday (10^th August) it was exactly 385 years since the sinking of the Swedish warship ‘Vasa’. The Vasa has always been one of my personal favourite historical ships; the ship didn’t have a long history, as it sank on its maiden voyage after travelling only 1300 m from the harbour in 1628, but she has provided us with some amazing insights into the life in 17^th Sweden as some of the artefacts recovered from the ship as well as the ship herself were in very good condition.

The sinking of the Vasa. Source: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/The-sinking/

The building of the Vasa began in 1626 on the orders from the Swedish king himself. Gustaf II Adolf, the King of Sweden at the time, was fighting several wars and was in the need of more warships. The Vasa was built to amaze everyone who saw her, and with 64 guns and a crew of 450 men she truly was a powerful war machine, built to turn the wars into Sweden’s favour. She was also a very beautiful ship with many carved ornaments and sculptures, painted in colourful colours.

Overview of the construction the Vasa. Source: http://lovingstockholm.wordpress.com/tag/visit-vasa/

Unfortunately, the shipwrights had been a bit over ambitious when building the ship, which doomed her to sink on her maiden voyage. On 10^th August 1628 the Vasa set sail from the Stockholm harbour. Many had come down to watch the ship proudly sail out of the harbour, and many of the crew had brought their families onboard for the first length of the journey. As soon as the ship had sailed out of the lee of the port, sails were raised to allow the wind to carry her for the rest of the journey. Suddenly when the wind got hold of the ship, the Vasa started heeling to the portside and the water started rushing in through the lower gunports that had been left open after firing the salute when leaving port. As the situation was hopeless the crew abandoned the ship, clinging onto the masts or other debris that was floating on the surface, waiting to be rescued. It is thought that around 30 people out the 150 people onboard at the time of the sinking were killed in the event.

After the sinking of the Vasa, an inquest was carried out to determine why the ship sank and whose fault it may have been. From eyewitness accounts it could be determined that the ship sank due to instability in the construction. The day before the ship was due to set sail, Vice Admiral Klas Fleming had carried out an exercise to test the stability of the ship, where 30 men would run across the deck and back ten times causing the ship to heel to either side. However, this exercise had to be stopped after the third time as the ship was in the risk of heeling over. The Swedish King also held part of the blame as he had approved the dimensions of the ship prior to the start of construction. Naturally the master shipwright, Henrik Hybertson, would carry some of the blame as he, although being an experienced shipwright, had carried out the building of the ship. Finally, the blame could have been laid on the captain of the Vasa, Captain Söfring Hansson, as he was aware of the instability in the construction and should have closed the lower gunports and also redistributed the weight of the ship or even suggested to reconstruct the Vasa prior to its maiden voyage.

On the 25^th August 1956, Anders Franzen rediscovered the ship’s location after the information of the location of the ship had been lost through time. This was the start of a major project that on this date is still ongoing. On the 24^th April 1961, the hull of the ship broke the surface in front of the world media after 333 years on the bottom of the sea. The major conservation project of preserving the ship and the artefacts started soon after. Nothing of its like had ever been done before, so a lot of the work carried out were experiments with unknown consequences. The ship was sprayed with polyethylene glycol (PEG), which functions as a replacement of the water in the wood, creating a wax-like surface that preserves the wood in its original shape. Same technology was used during the preservation work of King Henry VIII’s warship the Mary Rose.

The remains of the Vasa, as currently displayed in the Vasa Museum, Stockholm, Sweden. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

95% of the original wood from the hull of the Vasa has been successfully preserved. In addition, ca. 45 000 other finds have been preserved and archived. The collection of finds can be found in an internet database that has been made available to the general public.

The Vasa Museum. Source: http://www.photoglobe.info/blhl_stockholm/stockholm_20050724_004.html. 

More information about this magnificent ship can be found on the Vasa Museum’s website: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/. If you happen to be in Stockholm (Sweden), or will be going for a visit, I really hope you plan to visit the Vasa Museum in the future. I visited the museum in 2011 and was absolutely blown away by their amazing exhibits and of course the ship herself. I really can’t recommend this museum enough!

L

Source: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/