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55°37′42″N9°16′57″E / 55.62833°N 9.28250°E /55.62833; 9.28250
Egtved Girl | |
|---|---|
 Treetrunk coffin of the Egtved Girl at theNational Museum of Denmark | |
| Born | c. 1390 BC |
| Died | c. 1370 BC (aged 16-18) |
| Body discovered | 24 February 1921 |
| Resting place | National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Era | Nordic Bronze Age |
| Known for | Her well-preserved remains |
| Height | 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) |
TheEgtved Girl[ˈektveð] (c. 1390 – c. 1370 BC) was aNordic Bronze Age girl whose well-preserved remains were discovered outsideEgtved,Denmark in 1921. Aged 16–18 at death, she was slim, 160 centimetres (63 in) tall, had short, blond hair and well-trimmed nails.[1] Her burial has been dated bydendrochronology to 1370 BC. She was discovered together with cremated remains of a child in abarrow approximately 30 metres (98 ft) wide and 4 metres (13 ft) high. Only the girl's hair, brain, teeth, nails, and a little of her skin remain preserved.[2]
The barrow wasexcavated in 1921, and a coffin was found in an east-west alignment. It was sealed and transported to theNational Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, where it was opened, revealing the Egtved Girl.
In the coffin, the girl was wrapped in an ox hide. She wore a loose, short tunic with sleeves reaching the elbow. She had a bare waist and wore a short string skirt. She had bronze bracelets, and a woollen belt with a large disc decorated with spirals and a spike. At her feet were the cremated remains of a child aged 5 to 6. By her head, there was a smallbirch bark box that contained anawl, bronze pins, and ahair net.[citation needed]
Before the coffin was closed, she was covered with a blanket and an ox hide. Floweringyarrow (indicating a summer burial) and a bucket of beer made of wheat, honey,bog-myrtle, andcowberries was placed atop. Her distinctive outfit, which caused a sensation when it was unearthed in the 1920s, is the best-preserved example of a style now known to be common in northern Europe during theBronze Age. The good preservation of the Egtved Girl is due to the acidic bog conditions of the soil, which is a common condition of this locale.[3]
The outfit was reconstructed for theNational Museum of Denmark by theLejre Experimental Centre and is on display there. A reconstructed set of clothes, as well as details of the excavation, are on display in the Egtved Girl's museum at the excavation site.
Initial work by Frei et al in 2015, since contradicted, examinedchemical isotopes of strontium from the Egtved Girl's teeth, fingernails, hair, and clothing, and based on these, proposed that she had likely come from theBlack Forest region of Germany, but married and moved to Denmark, subsequently traveling back and forth between the two areas.[4]
However, Thomsen and Andreasen demonstrated in 2019 that thestrontium isotopic data obtained from the area surrounding the grave and used by Frei et al for comparison against the remains had been contaminated by additional strontium contained in theagricultural lime used in modern farming in the Egtved area.[5] When Thomsen and Andreasen analyzed samples locally from places uncontaminated by modern farming, they found that the range of strontium isotopic values in the surrounding natural environment matched those in the girl. Thus, it is most plausible that she originated from and spent her entire life in the Egtved area, and did not come far abroad, as proposed by Frei et al. Thomsen and Andreasen's results show that the girl did live about half the year in one area – likely the river valley in Egtved – and the other half of the year in another place – likely the local plateau, perhaps in the practice oftranshumance farming and seasonal pastoral movement within a small area.
In a 2019 article based on strontium isotope analysis, Sophie Bergerbrant suggests an origin of Sweden or Norway for the Egtved Girl.[6]
The girl's final resting place was first unearthed in 1921, in a large burial mound made of peat bog.
