The Egtved Girl

The Egtved girl is one of Denmark's most famous burial finds from the Bronze Age. The find provides us with a glimpse into life in Europe of this early time. For the first time, modern technology has been able to reconstruct the itinerary of a prehistoric person - yielding breathtaking results. Egtved in Denmark in 1921: Farmer Peder Platz wants to flatten a hill on his plot of land. In the process he discovers a wooden tree coffin. Platz assumes that it might be an important find and he was to be proven right. The so-called Egtved girl is one of the most famous Bronze Age burial finds. The girl's clothes were a sensation at the time: In the young woman's coffin, the researchers discovered a short, see-through woolen skirt made of twisted cords and a bare midriff tunic in a sensationally perfect condition. The remains of the girl's body, however, were scarce: teeth, nails and hair of the length of 23 cm, which was examined with top-notch methods, yielding in part sensational results. Unlike originally assumed, the Egtved girl was not Danish. The young woman had made a long journey before her death around the year 1370 at the age of between 16 and 18 years. To have made such a long journey during the then dangerous times, the young woman must have been brave, courageous and head-strong. At the time, not any dead person was lavishly buried in a grave mound together with valuable bronze burial objects. What was the girl's status in the Bronze Age society? Is it possible that the young woman was a priestess, was she married off, and were trade relations the reason for the young woman's long journey across Germany?