The next episode of Mummies Unwrapped shows explorer Ramy Romany on the hunt for a Celtic bog mummy and he happens to find a verified Iron Age brooch in the process.
In our exclusive clip, Ramy is digging into these mysterious bog people as he examines mummified murder victims who are now unearthed from marshy bogs across Northern Europe.
These bodies are about 2,000 years old and Ramy finds himself right in the center of the bog and he will determine if they were part of a brutal human sacrifice to appease the early gods of these people of the Iron Age.
As Ramy opens the clip, he explains the urgency of his task.
“With land developments threatening to destroy the bogs and the secrets that they hold, it’s crucial that we discover bog bodies and artifacts before it’s too late,” Ramy explains. “If my theory is correct, when ancient Celts ritually sacrificed these bodies, it was right in the center of the bog so that’s where we’re looking right now.”
Ramy is joined by his fellow researchers using metal detectors to locate any human remains, which likely had clothing with metal embellishments. He gets a hit and we see how he digs and pulls up an Iron Age brooch, verified by one of the accompanying scientists with Ramy.
Ireland, Germany, Denmark and other boggy places in Europe have a mysterious legacy of what are known as bog mummies, poor souls who met their end in a brutal fashion.
There’s much speculation as to why these deaths and odd sacrifices were made back in the Iron Age times and their remains are being discovered constantly.
Because of this natural preservation, scientists can really piece together what happened to these people and how they died, and it was not pleasant.
Iron Age bog bodies and skeletons dating to between 800 B.C. and A.D. 200 are being found in the United Kingdom, Denmark, The Netherlands, Ireland and Germany according to National Geographic Magazine.
Bogs were considered sacred places for Iron Age people who viewed them as portals of sorts, acting as spiritual gateways to the world beyond their mortal existence. This is where sacrifices were made to various gods with human life being the most potent gift of all.
In the European wetlands, bog bodies have fascinated archaeologists with their incredible preservation thanks to the acidity and nature of the bog protecting and almost tanning the human skin in a leather-like fashion.
The state of the bodies combined with the preserved clothing, jewelry and even stomach contents has been a boon for researchers, who are learning more about this time period that began in Britain around 800 BC. Even the bog mummies’ hair is remarkably pliant and still with some pigmentation thanks to the acidic, oxygen-poor conditions of peat bogs, which are dense layers of dead moss and other vegetation.
Tune in to see how far Ramy gets in uncovering the remnants of these British bog mummies.
Mummies Unwrapped airs Wednesday at 10/9c on Discovery.