Peter Vilhelm Glob (20 February 1911 – 20 July 1985), also known as P. V. Glob, was a Danish archaeologist. Glob was most noted for his investigations of Denmark's

bog bodies A bog body is a human cadaver that has been Natural mummy, naturally mummified in a Bog, peat bog. Such bodies, sometimes known as bog people, are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between 8000 BC and the S ...

such as the

Tollund Man The Tollund Man (died 405–384 BC) is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body near Sil ...

and

Grauballe Man The Grauballe Man is a bog body that was uncovered in 1952 from a peat bog near the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark. The body is that of a man dating from the late 3rd century BC, during the early Germanic Iron Age. Based on the evidenc ...

, mummified remains of

Iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

people found preserved within peat bogs. His anthropological works include '' The Bog People: Iron Age Man Preserved'', ''Denmark: An Archaeological History from the Stone Age to the Vikings'', and ''Mound People: Danish Bronze-Age Man Preserved''.

Biography

Glob was a student of archeology at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

. He published his dissertation and was awarded his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1944. He worked for the

National Museum of Denmark The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark, Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from S ...

from 1937 to 1949, then as a professor at

Aarhus University Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university. Its main campus is located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Ut ...

from 1949 until 1960, and then as Director General of Museums and Antiquities for the state of Denmark (''Riksantikvaren'') from 1960 to 1981. He was co-founder of the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism, an institution which studied the history of graffiti. His most famous investigation was that of the

. Glob was also heavily engaged in archaeology of the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and led several scientific expeditions there. In the 1950s he discovered and excavated the ruins of the ancient

Dilmun Dilmun, or Telmun, ( Sumerian: ,Transliteration: Similar text: later 𒉌𒌇(𒆠), NI.TUKki = dilmunki; ) was an ancient East Semitic–speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on contextual ...

civilization on the island country of

Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

. In 1954 he and his team uncovered the

Barbar Temple The Barbar Temple () is an archaeological site located in the village of Barbar, Bahrain, considered to be part of the Dilmun culture. The most recent of the three Barbar temples was rediscovered by a Danish archaeological team in 1954. A furth ...

, considered to be part of the Dilmun culture.

Personal life

Peter Glob was born at

Kalundborg Kalundborg () is a Danish city with a population of 16,659 (1 January 2025),Zealand Zealand ( ) is the largest and most populous islands of Denmark, island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size) at 7,031 km2 (2715 sq. mi.). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 Januar ...

, the son of the Danish painter Johannes Glob (1882–1955). He later married Harriet Roepstorff and they had five children, including the ceramic artist Lotte Glob. He died at

Djursland Djursland () is a 1,417 km2 hilly lowland peninsula in Denmark at the entrance to the Baltic Sea, between Denmark and Sweden in Northern Europe. Djursland protrudes into the Kattegat sea, as part of the larger peninsula of Jutland, which its ...

in 1985.

Select bibliography

*''Mosefolket – Jernalderens mennesker bevaret i 2000 år'', Gyldendal, 1965 *''The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved'', translated from the Danish by

Rupert Bruce-Mitford Rupert Leo Scott Bruce-Mitford (14 June 1914 – 10 March 1994) was a British archaeologist and scholar. He spent the majority of his career at the British Museum, primarily as the Keeper of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, ...

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

, 1969, 304 pg. (

New York Review Books New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, ...

, 2004). *''Denmark: An Archaeological History from the Stone Age to the Vikings'', Cornell University Press, 1971, 351 pg, *''Danish Prehistoric Monuments'', Faber and Faber, 1971, 351, (The two previous book editions derive from the same original book written in Danish: ''Danske Oltidsminder,'' best translated as ''Memorials of Ancient Denmark''. See American Anthropologist, Volume 75, Issue 6, page 1940.) *''Mound People: Danish Bronze-Age Man Preserved'', Cornell University Press, 1974, 184 pg, *''Danefæ. Til Hendes Majestaet Dronning Margrethe II'', 16 April 1980.

References

Other sources

*Højlund, Flemming (1999)
''Glob and the Garden of Eden: the Danish expeditions to the Arabian Gulf''
(Moesgård Museum, trans. Peter Crabb) *Bibby, Geoffrey (1969) ''Looking for Dilmun'' (Alfred A. Knopf) *Fischer, Christian (2007) ''Tollundmanden: gaven til guderne: mosefund fra Danmarks forhistorie'' (Silkeborg: Silkeborg Museum) {{DEFAULTSORT:Glob, Peter 1911 births 1985 deaths People from Kalundborg 20th-century Danish archaeologists University of Copenhagen alumni Academic staff of Aarhus University