Lindow Man will be returning to Manchester Museum in April 2008. © the British Museum
The British Museum has confirmed that Lindow Man, the mid-1st century AD bog body seen by millions of visitors to the British Museum every year, will travel on long-term loan to the Manchester Museum in 2008.
A special exhibition, Lindow Man: A Bog Body Mystery will see the remarkably preserved remains of the body go on display from April 19 2008 until April 19 2009.
It will be the third time Lindow Man has made the journey north. He was previously on loan to the Manchester Museum from April – December 1987 and then again between March 25 and September 21 1991.
“It is a major undertaking to transport Lindow Man to Manchester for obvious conservation reasons but I am delighted that people in the North West of England will once again have the opportunity to meet this everyman of pre-historic Britain at the Manchester Museum,” said Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum.
Discovered at Lindow Moss in Cheshire in 1984, Lindow Man is the best preserved bog body ever found in Britain. The preservation of his remains by British Museum scientists has allowed experts from across the UK to study who he was and why he died.
Current thinking seems to agree that he was knocked unconscious by two blows to the head and then garrotted as part of an Iron Age ritual sacrifice. However, he continues to be the subject of new research and study.
Lindow Man: A Bog Body Mystery will explore the different stories relating to Lindow Man, and look at what he means to us today. Through a series of public consultations the views of archaeologists, curators and Pagan groups have been sought - all of whom have very different views on Lindow Man.
Their personal experiences and responses are designed to provide a unique insight into the impact that he has had on their lives, and those of many others.
The loan was proposed by the British Museum to the Manchester Museum as part of its Partnership UK scheme. The scheme reflects an ongoing commitment to enabling as many people as possible throughout the UK to see important parts of the national collection.
Read the 24 Hour Museum article looking at some of the issues facing Manchester Museum as it prepares to display the remains of Lindow Man for the third time.
