Tuesday 24 September 2013

THE NIPPLES STRIKE AGAIN

As you might have heard by now, the Laois bog body (now dubbed "Cashel Man") has been officially declared as the world's oldest. As you may remember, when the body was first discovered a couple of years ago now, pretty much every report focused on one man and his theory about nipples...

And lo! Here he is again:

In the other two bog body cases, says Eamonn Kelly, the nipples had been deliberately damaged. 
"We're looking at the bodies of kings who have been decommissioned, who have been sacrificed. As part of that decommissioning, their nipples are mutilated. 
"In the Irish tradition they could no longer serve as king if their bodies were mutilated in this way. This is a decommissioning of the king in this life and the next."
Quoth the Beeb

Once again, there's no firm evidence offered for any of this, and as before there is no consideration of the alternatives to offer some balance in the article itself. Is it indicative of a ritual "decommissioning" or, as National Geographic points out, more to do with the conditions of the bog and delicate tissue like the nipples just not surviving? Granted, perhaps that makes less of an exciting story...