The Moora Mystery: What Happened When a Girl Stepped into the Moor 2,500 Years Ago?

Back in 2000, peat harvesters near Uchte, Germany thought they had unearthed a buried tragedy. Mangled inside of the blades of a peat harvesting machine were pieces of human bone and tissue. They were far deeper in the bog than a body was expected to be found. Concerned thoughts immediately turned to the story of the disappearance of a teenaged girl from Germany in 1969.

Not far from where they stopped to remove the debris and preserve what they could, they later found a perfectly mummified hand. Forensic specialists were quickly on the scene, hoping to confirm that this was the case from almost 30 years prior. The reality of the find was more spectacular than they could have imagined.

Moora’s Story

The naked remains were identified by forensic scientists to be that of a female in her late teens – but they did not belong to any teenager from the current century. Radiocarbon dating showed the scientists that the hand and the bones belonged to a girl who lived over 2,500 years ago, at the tail end of the Iron Age – making her older than any other bog body found in Germany.

She was believed to have been between 16 -19 years of age at the time of her death. What she was doing in the bog is still widely speculated by professionals, but researchers have argued that it could have been anything from simple household chores to gathering bilberry – a plant known for its intoxicating properties and used for medicine. Some of the onsite researchers even referred to her as possibly being a witch.