The discovery in irish bogs of these brutally murdered ancient royals provides major clues about their past - and possible future unearthings. Dick Ahlstrom reports.
There is something disconcerting about gazing into the eyes of a dead man. It is even more chilling knowing that the person staring back across more than 2,000 years was brutally murdered. And yet dead men have tales to tell, none more so than Clonycavan Man, who appears this morning both as he is now - as a preserved bog body - and also as he was as a young man in his prime in early Iron Age Ireland.
He was a real person with hopes and dreams, fears and challenges. He did not live long enough to realise them, however. He met his end as the victim of a ritualistic killing and burial in a waterlogged bog that hid his resting place for 2,300 years. The bog also preserved his remains until they were unearthed in February 2003.
The discovery of bog bodies is a persistent if infrequent occurrence right across the northwest of Europe. Some 150 have been found, but only about 40 have emerged in a reasonable state of preservation.
And so 2003 represented a year of note for archaeologists who study bog bodies. Not one but two were found in Ireland in that year, almost 20 years after the last major find outside Manchester, the famous Lindow Man bog body.
Even more importantly, one of the two was in a remarkable state of preservation, despite appearing without head or legs.
The two discoveries, in counties Meath and Offaly, sparked a near two-year effort to study the bodies, Clonycavan Man and Old Croghan Man, in minute forensic and scientific detail. The National Museum of Ireland led this international effort, which involved contributions from up to 30 researchers in six countries.
Their efforts are also captured in an hour-long BBC Timewatch documentary to be aired on television later this month. The Timewatch film crew followed the experts as they established cause of death and learned what they could about two human personalities whose lives were snuffed out in the ritualised killings typical of most bog body discoveries.
Their startlingly good state of preservation - they emerged from the bog with browned but still supple flesh - ensured that the two never became figures of fun or acquired silly nicknames such as Peat Bog, explains the museum's head of conservation, Rolly Read.
"That is what has been amazing about this project," he says. "They have become individuals. We have found out so much about them they have become individuals with personalities. They are people and we know all about them."
They know, for example, from fingerprints taken by the Garda Technical Bureau, that Old Croghan Man - who emerged from the peat only as two arms, two hands and a torso - has fingerprint patterns similar to those seen in Irish people today.
Although crushed by blows from a heavy weapon and further distorted after two millenniums in the bog, the computer-generated reconstruction of the face of Clonycavan Man reveals someone you might meet in a pub tomorrow.
"It is incredible," says Read. "You see a person who looks like a person. He could be your great, great - however many it is - grandfather." The bog bodies' descendants - if they managed to produce any during their short lives - could be walking the streets of Ireland today.
So who were these two and what was learned about them over the months since their discovery in 2003?
The research team found that both had aspects indicating they must have occupied positions in the upper echelons of Irish Iron Age society. Carbon dating showed both lived about 2,300 years ago and forensic examination indicated they died aged 20-25 years, explains the museum's Isabella Mulhall, who co-ordinated the bog body project.
"The state of preservation was remarkable. They weren't complete but what remained was in very good condition," she added. This was because they were reposing in the acidic conditions found in a peat bog.
They were in similarly good condition before death. "Their health was excellent - no evidence of disease or medical problems," says Mulhall.
Old Croghan Man, scooped out of Croghan Bog in Co Offaly by a digger, was a giant, even by today's standards. He stood an estimated 1.98m (six feet six inches) tall, based on the span of his arms, which survived along with his torso.
His hands were notable for their lack of any scars, cuts, wear or signs of manual labour. "We also noted his fingernails were well manicured. These findings were also seen in Lindow Man," says Mulhall.
Electron microscope analysis of his nails showed Old Croghan Man also eschewed even the mildest labours, which might have caused small cuts in his nails.
"This was a man who performed no manual labour. This was an aristocrat," says the museum's keeper of Irish antiquities, Ned Kelly.
An expert in the social milieu of the time, Kelly points out that kings and clan leaders did no work. They led troops into battle without taking part and promised to keep on the right side of the gods who controlled harvests.
Clonycavan Man was found dumped among waste peat, dug out of the Clonycavan Bog in Co Meath. His body also carried clues pointing to a high social standing.
He was much shorter - 1.57m (five feet two inches) - but was very particular about his hair. It was brought together and bound at the top of his head, and was held in place by pine resin. Testing of this material showed that it could only have come from northern Spain or southern France, a surprise to experts given that trade here in such luxury goods was unknown at that time.
"He wore imported hair gel in 200 BC," says Read. "He was a very swanky fellow."
Their status did not protect them from violent deaths at the hands of unknown perpetrators. State Pathologist Marie Cassidy's postmortem showed Clonycavan Man's head was smashed in with three blows that caused instant death. Old Croghan Man's death was more grisly given he was probably tortured before his head was lopped off in two blows.
Despite their savage demise so long ago, they have much to teach us today. "They have survived to tell their tale and we can learn from them if we have ears to hear," states Kelly.
SO MUCH PERSONAL information was available from the two that Kelly was prompted to look back at earlier Irish bog body finds. He suddenly realised that these and most other bodies had been found on the boundaries between the old Irish clan territories. Further study showed that hundreds of Iron Age artefacts had been dug up over the years along the borders between these old political territories.
A very different picture of early Iron Age Irish society began to emerge, one based on local kings and clan leaders depositing bodies and valuable artefacts along the borders of their lands as a way of declaring sovereignty.
They were not deposited in settlements or regular graves but in the boggy marshes that typically formed borders, says Kelly. "This is totally new and unique and totally rewrites the history of the early Iron Age," he says.
"There are also offerings there for the god of fertility, Crom. There are references in the early texts to human sacrifices made to the god Crom. He was the main god, he is the big boy."
The bog bodies have yielded up their secrets, their stories have now been told. Museum staff last month completed a freeze-drying process to preserve them for posterity, and in May they will be put on display in the National Museum on Dublin's Kildare Street in an exhibition called Kingship and Sacrifice. The two have much to say despite their deaths so long ago in the lonely bogs of Ireland.
An hour-long programme documenting how the two Irish bog bodies were studied and what was discovered will be broadcast in a BBC Timewatch special, The Bog Bodies, at 9pm on Jan 20 on BBC2. www.bbc.co.uk/timewatch