The Egtved Girl is the name given to the extremely well-preserved burial of a Bronze age woman (ca. 1370 BC) located in south Jutland, Denmark. The level of preservation has provided a very close look at Bronze Age clothing and hairstyles.
A 20-year-old woman was dressed in a string skirt, a short sleeved shirt with a woven belt and a bronze spiked belt disc. She was laid on a cow-hide and covered by a coarse woolen blanket. Lying next to her was a birch-bark drink container with remnants of a drink made of bog myrtle, cranberries and honey. Egtved was the closest look at the clothing of a prehistoric person we had until the Bronze Age fellow named Otzi was found in the Austrian/Italian alps.
While not precisely a bog body, the Egtved girl's remains show evidence of ritual death and extremely excellent preservation normally associated with bog bodies. The reasons for the preservation are currently under investigation by the Lejre Experimental Centre in Denmark.
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com Guide to Bog Bodies, and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
