Braak Bog Figures

Part of a larger tradition of similar figures spanning the period from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, they are human-like in appearance and have been carbon dated to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE; the Schleswig-Holstein state archaeology museum puts them as far back as 400BCE.

[6] They are among several anthropomorphic wooden figures of varying form unearthed from the Neolithic and into the Middle Ages, in areas of Northern Europe ranging from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany to Norrland in Sweden.

[8] Of these, the Braak Bog Figures are the largest found in Germany,[6] and Malcolm Todd calls them the "most imposing".

[2] Hilda Ellis Davidson (1975) comments that these figures may represent a "Lord and Lady" of the Vanir, a group of Norse gods, and that "another memory of [these wooden figures] may survive in the tradition of the creation of Ask and Embla, the man and woman who founded the human race, created by the gods from trees on the seashore".

The post-war conservator there, Karl Schlabow, has been accused of over-restoring archaeological exhibits, including accentuating the sexual characteristics of the Braak figures.