The Mound People
March 5, 2023
Experimental folk / Folk
All text and images sourced from The Mound People: Danish Bronze Age Man Preserved by PV Glob first published in 1974. “They were clad in their everyday clothes and richly supplied with ornaments and weapons of gold and bronze. Their sophisticated culture covered the whole of Scandinavia and much of northern Europe. Their sudden decline remains a mystery” Coffin packed with eelgrass sword rested on his chest by the scabbard lay a leather sack filled with incredible objects Small conch shell a cube of wood a piece of bark different dried roots tail of a snake a falcon’s claw small slender pair of tweezers Charcoal and a young squirrel’s jaw amber beads and scraps of bronze leather case bound with a thong horse head handle razor Inside a woman’s belt box of the kind held on their back two horse teeth some weasel bones the claw joint of a cat A wire bent to form a hook a yellow lump of clay pyrite and quartz pebbles a few snake vertebrae A bird’s windpipe half an inch long a twig of mountain ash and on the box and fastener a moon and star pattern Carved on the side of the stone coffin two men beating a hanging drum bird-like figures walk in procession toward a man who holds a square Carved on the side of the stone coffin chariot races stallion fights a ship to carry the dead chieftain to a kingdom beyond the sea Brewed from wheat and mountain cranberries the pollen of a flowering lime tree a fruit wine yarrow in the summertime laid the blossoms carefully by her hair and feet By her side wrapped up in the cowhide the burnt bones of a child age eight or nine bark from tree little heather moss and leaf a horn comb with twenty well cared for teeth Water filled the coffin all that remained inside a fatty mass of soft brown flesh wrapped up in cowhide His bones a pale blue powder his hair still in its cap a bronze sword in a wood scabbard by his feet in a large basket
