(from Reuters)
The preserved remains of two prehistoric men discovered in an Irish bog have revealed a couple of surprises --- one used hair gel and the other stood 6 foot 6 inches high, the tallest Iron Age body discovered.
"He would have been a giant...the other man was quite short, about 5 foot 2 inches," said Ned Kelly, head of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland.
"The shorter man appeared to attempt to give himself greater stature by a rather curious headdress which was a bit like a Mohican-style with the hair gel, which was a resin imported from France," Kelly told BBC radio.
Bacterial conditions found in the peat bogs preserved the remains so that even fingerprints were clearly visible.
The fashion-conscious gel wearer has been named Clonycavan Man and Kelly said the fact he was able to buy imported cosmetics suggests he was a wealthy member of Irish society about 2,300 years ago. The other was dubbed Oldcroghan Man.
Kelly said both men had been murdered.
"Oldcroghan Man was stabbed through the chest. He saw that attack coming because there is a defensive injury on his arm."
He was then decapitated and his body cut in half while Clonycaven Man had his head split open with an axe before he was disembowelled.
***
Immediately, speculations sprang up at the Medusa fora:
Maybe they had a quarrel over the Pogues merchandise?
T-shirts, for example... And disembowelled each other?
One wanted to make a present and another longed to pay...
Perhaps they were not far from the truth...
***
The guys perished some 2,000 years ago, but maybe time lapses occur in the Bog sometimes. Things travel here and there... And maybe that was the reason for the whole tragedy of mammoth proportions.
Imagine an Iron Age swell. He is short, but he makes up for it with his elaborate hairdo. Women go all crazy. Men go all jealous. One day when he is roaming the peaceful Irish countryside, he finds himself at an eerie place. It looks like dozen other bogs he knows. But it isn’t the same, there’s something about the air, the smells, everything... He even spots a pink bat with pearly eyes, but maybe he’s just dreaming. He sits under a bush to sort our his jumbled impressions and what does he find there? A crumpled garment, really fetching, with a cool picture of skull and crossbones (and with The Pogues logo, but they didn’t know anything about the Pogues T-shirts back then). He puts aside his stone hammer (he is the last bearer of such an antique thing from the Stone Age, women love it) and picks up the garment excitedly... only to find out it is too big for him. He pulls it over his head and it falls right down to his ankles. He bows to retrieve it and with a sad sigh decides to present it to his pal. Normally, he wouldn’t be so generous (he would rather tear the shirt to shreds), but the Bog does strange things to people’s thinking.
His pal is huge. He’s the tallest in the country (6 foot 6 inches!) and it secretly drives him nuts that females prefer the dwarf with the chic hairdo and silly stone hammer. He usually grinds his teeth and says nothing. But anger seethes inside him. That day he waits for his dwarvish friend at the edge of the Bog, leaning against an oak tree.
The guy with the elaborate Mohican-style hairdo approaches him and hands him the shirt. The big guy hesitates. What does this mean? he wonders. The dwarvish wretch gives him a present? It isn’t possible. It must be some kind of plot. He offers to pay for the shirt (with his brand new cudgel), but the short man refuses to take anything, insists the shirt is a gift. The tall guy’s temper flares. The dwarf makes sport of him, attacks his honour. The tall man swings his axe, and bang, splits his pal’s head into two. And as for the disembowelling – different time, different manners. And maybe the Bog does all kinds of strange things to people’s thinking.
After the dreadful deed is done, the big guy picks up the shirt and looks at it. Smashing. He loves the pic. He puts the garment on, sets his bloody axe aside and admires his reflection in a tiny bog lake. Totally smashing. He whoops. And in the next moment they are all around him. A swarming of girls and women. He whoops again, thinking his new attire has already attracted all the females from the neighbourhood. But they are all looking at the disembowelled body lying on the ground. They start wailing and weeping. And then fierce anger creeps into their eyes. The fiercest of them jumps at him, he manages to raise his arms, but it’s futile, the woman stabs him right into his chest. He falls down and loses his conscience in a second, which is only good as it spares him being a witness to the other atrocities the harpys do with him – decapitating and cutting him in half included. But it’s just a revenge for their lost sweetheart with the loveliest hairstyle and sweetest stone hammer in the whole world.
What else to add? The women took the stone hammer as a cherished souvenir, so it was never found in the Bog. And the T-shirt, the cause of all the violence and sadness? Crappy product of consumer society, it decomposed in a couple centuries.
photo © unknown