Might be Paul Newman or someone as handsome as he was, but no, he is an old Dane
The
dead body of the Tollund Man is in itself a strange miracle because it
is so very well preserved. It has been said that he is the best
preserved corpse in the world even though he has been dead since around
500 BC. The reason why this dead man is considered handsome even today
is that it's still possible to discern fingerprints, beard stubbles,
facial features as well as facial expression.
One thing is for sure he
is amazing in the way his looks exhibit an inner peace and tranquility
even in his cruel death by hanging. There is no panic to be seen in this
face of a man who supposedly was the sacrifical gift to some god or
goddess. His fellow men treated him with respect and there are no marks
on him that indicate he should be a criminal who was executed for some
crime. In his stomach there was the remains of a gruel of 30 different
plant seeds. No traces of meat.
Actually
dead bodies were cremated in the early Iron Age, only the bog people
have been buried in this way. Nobody really knows why. Close by the spot
where the Tollund Man was found another bog body had been found in
1938, i.e. the Elling woman, who also had been hanged at around the same
time. However, she is not at all as well preserved as him and does not
bear the same expression of serenity. To find a corpse as fine looking
as the Tollund man we should go to e.g. Greenland where some have been
found frozen by the permafrost.
The reason why these finds make such an impression isn't that they are dead people, but that they, so to speak, are visitors from the past because they have kept their live personality. Their faces tell us much about the people whom we stem from.
Wikipedia
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