This iron age “bog body” was discovered in the 1940’s in the Borremose bog in Denmark along with several others. Such bog bodies have been discovered in various places throughout the world, mostly in Northern Europe and date from as early as 10,000 BC to shortly after the birth of Christ. While this body was identified as a man by the large amount of flesh naturally preserved by the tanning properties of the bog, “his” facial features are non gender-specific.
No one theory has definitively explained the presence of these bodies in ancient peat bogs. These theories include the ritual burial of deformed and/or mentally retarded people considered by some iron age societies to be sacred. In this theory, the interment of these bodies in bogs was done with the knowledge of their preservational properties and with the intention that they live eternally in a semi-god like status in the supernatural world. The Nazi henchman Heinrich Himmler argued that these bodies were those of homosexuals who were condemned and executed for their indiscretions. Other theories raise the possibility that the bodies were sacrificial victims whose bodies were offered to Gods and Goddesses of fertility and reproduction.
The first theory, that these corpses belonged to deformed/handicapped people, is arguably the strongest based on the physical evidence alone. Many of the bodies discovered were shown to have extreme deformities including shortened arms and legs and various spinal anomalies. In any event, the specific environmental conditions which preserved these corpses, rendering them physically androgynous in appearance, seem to have carried out the intentions of the ancient Norse communities to deify these souls. In relinquishing their gender identities in death, they came to resemble any number of Gods and Goddesses, both ancient and modern, who are themsleves androgynous by virtue of their own immortality.