BBC documentary claims Cashel Man was sacrificed after failed harvest
Bog body found in County Laois named "Cashel Man"
Photo by Google Images
A new BBC documentary claims that Cashel Man – the world’s oldest bog body – was murdered by his subjects after a crop failure caused by climate change.
The TV program, commissioned by BBC4,
suggests the Bronze Age king was killed 4,000 years ago after a failed
harvest which was not his fault.
Cashel Man
is one of about 300 bog bodies to have been discovered worldwide and
was dug out of a bog in Laois in August 2011 by a worker using a
peat-milling machine.
Carbon dating proved he predated Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun by 700 years. Forensic analysis proved he died a brutal death.
The Sunday Times reports
that the documentary, to be aired on Thursday, will suggest that the
ritual killing was in response to changes in the Irish climate in what
the paper says is considered the most dramatic weather event since the
Ice Age.
The programme was produced by 360
Production, a Derry-based independent television company who filmed the
two-year investigation into the bog body.
Producer Edward Hart said: “The documentary
interprets how recording climate data from samples of bogs and reading
between the lines can give us an idea of what the weather was like at
that time.
“We call it a controversial theory because
not everyone agrees with it, but it deserves to be explored because a
shift in climate would have impacted on everything from crops to animals
to how people dealt with these changes.”
The documentary, entitled ‘4000-Year-Old
Cold Case: The Body in the Bog’, follows Cork-based scientist Ben Gearey
as he studies fossilised ameba, or peat particles, to determine a
record of rainfall from the prehistoric period.
The report says evidence of a colder and rainier climate could be interpreted as the reason why harvests failed.
The paper adds that at that time, crop
productivity was thought to be controlled by a goddess worshipped by the
people. A bad harvest meant she was not happy and the way to appease
her was to sacrifice the king.
Ned Kelly, keeper of Irish antiquities at
the National Museum of Ireland, led the investigation with Ireland’s
state pathologist Marie Cassidy and a team of scientists.
He told the Sunday Times that unusual
weather and its impact on livestock and food supplies would have had
dire consequences for a king at that time.
Kelly said: “It would have had an impact
because of this unique role of kings whereby he was personally
responsible for crops and animals. Kings would be killed ritually if
these failed.”
Kelly added: “Kings were killed ritually by
what was called a triple killing. This was because the goddess had three
forms: sovereignty; fertility and death.
“And this type of killing was preserved for
kings - it would be a violent death. Kings were married to the land so
if anything went wrong they were killed.”
