Preserved Corpse at the National Museum of Ireland
The landscape of Ireland isn’t really very mountainous. It is hilly but there are a lot of flat areas here as well. I was surprised to know that large parts of these areas are populated by small plants. These are the bogs of Ireland. These very same bogs make it very difficult of people to spread to the interior of Ireland as it makes the land unfit for cultivation. The bogs are the result of layer upon layer of decomposed living matter and in some parts can be eight meters in depth. The bogs are also now a source of fuel as the peat from these bogs can be burned for heating. This has taken a toll on the landscape and there has been a huge number of boglands which were lost due to this. Although large areas of boglands are now under protection, it is still not enough as the lure of money is more powerful.
Beautiful Box on Display at the National Museum of Ireland
Bogs are also a surprising soure of archeological artifacts in Ireland. Bogs are typically anaerobic, meaning they have very little oxygen in them, which means that anything that falls in the bog, will not decompose. In fact, long dead people have been found in these bogs and you can see a huge amount of detail that was preserved. Stuff that is not normally preserved after death can still be seen here. For example, the skin of a man that was found in the bog was wonderfully preserved. So well preserved it was that you can even see the fingerprints of that person. There have been a few people who have been found in the bogs and they have been sent to the museum for safe keeping. It is through these extraordinary circumstances that scientists have been able to tease some details about the life of that person. Including what they ate before death.
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