Cashel Man is the name given a preserved corpse discovered in 2011 in a peat bog near the town of Cashel , in County Laois in the central lowland of Ireland . A peat bog is a wetland in which the soil consists primarily ofpeat, partially decayed mosses and other plant matter. Cashel Man is an example of a bog body , a body preserved through burial in a peat bog. Much of the Cashel Man’s skin, hair, torso, and limbs were preserved. However, the head and one arm were damaged by a peat harvesting machine and recovered later. Archaeologists excavated the body, which had been intentionally buried in the bog in a crouching position. Radiocarbon dating shows that Cashel Man lived and died about 4,000 years ago, during the early Bronze Age in Ireland. It is the most ancient bog body known anywhere in the world with skin in place.
Archaeologists determined that Cashel Man was a young adult when he died. Computed tomography (CT) scans of the remains revealed that his arm was broken and his lower back was cut about the time of his death. The damage inflicted by the peat harvesting machine was too great to determine the exact cause of Cashel Man’s death.
Cashel Man’s injuries suggest that he may have been a king who was killed as a human sacrifice . In ancient Ireland, people often deposited valuable items, such as swords and jewelry, in watery bogs as offerings to the gods. An ancient Irish king may have shared a similar fate if calamities, such as crop failures or plagues, occurred during his reign.
