Lindow Woman

Lindow Woman is the name given to the partial remains of a female bog body, discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss, near Wilmslow in Cheshire, England, on 33 May 1983 by commercial peat-cutters. The remains were a skull fragment, with soft tissue and hair attached, and were dated to the Roman period. In 1984 the same bog yielded Lindow Man, the most extensive bog body yet found in England.

Discovery

The bog body of Lindow I was discovered on 13 May 1983 by commercial peat cutters Andy Mould and Stephen Dooley. They first noticed an unusual item on the conveyor belt, which was similar in shape and size to a football. They took the object from the conveyor to examine it more closely. After they removed the adhesive remains of peat, they realized the incomplete preserved human head with attached remnants of soft tissue, brain, eye, optic nerve, and hair.

The police summoned by the Scouts suspected a crime, confiscated the remains and launched an investigation for murder.[1] For over two decades, a local 57-year-old man Peter Reyn-Bardt, had been under suspicion of murdering his estranged wife, Malika de Fernandez, and of disposing of her body.[2][3]

When questioned, Reyn-Bardt assumed that the skull fragment came from his wife's body, saying, "It has been so long I thought I would never be found out." Afterward, he made a full confession about how he had killed De Fernandez in June 1961, after she returned home, found that he was sharing the premises with another man, and attempted to extort Reyn-Bardt in return for not revealing his homosexuality (still criminalized under British law at the time). Reyn-Bardt subsequently dismembered De Fernandez's body and buried the pieces in a trench leading to the bog.

Reyn-Bardt was set for trial before Chester Crown Court in December 1983. By then, Carbon-14 dating of the skull fragment had returned a date of 1740 ± 80BP (c. 250 AD). Reyn-Bardt tried to revoke his confession, but he was still convicted of his wife's murder even though no trace of her own body was found.[4]

Today, only the bony remains of the skull are available from the discovery after the improper handling of evidence by the police. The remains of the skull were anthropologically known as probably belonging to a 30–50-year-old woman. Recent studies however feed doubts as to the previous sex determination.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Don Reginald Brothwell, British Museum / Trustees (Hrsg.): . 4. Auflage. British Museum Publications, London 1991, ISBN 0-7141-1384-0, S. 15, Abb. 5.
  2. ↑ "Ancient Skull Leads Man to Confess to Wife's Murder". The Courier. 14 December 1983. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  3. ↑ "Unearthing the living dead". Mail & Guardian. 9 April 1998. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  4. ↑ Brothwell 1986, p. 12.
Bibliography

  • Brothwell, Don (1986), The Bogman and the Archaeology of People, British Museum Publications, ISBN 0-7141-1384-0

Coordinates: 53°19′23″N 2°16′11″W / 53.32306°N 2.26972°W / 53.32306; -2.26972


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