100 stories from the hiking route

1936 – finding the Woman of Rabivere

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.1494178

Longitude: 24.7030745

L-EST 97

x: 6556970.4
y: 540232.2

Location

Penijõe-Aegviidu Hiking route

In March 1936, men digging a peat ditch by the Rabivere bog noticed someone’s legs sticking out of the ditch. Having overcome the initial shock, the men continued digging and soon enough, a woman’s body emerged from the peat. The found was discribed later by the workmen as “a human figure made of wood”. The dead was wearing woollen clothing well preserved in the bog’s soil. The conservation abilities of the peat was admireable: the patterns on the dead woman’s hat and mittens were still visible. From the side of the body a coin found from the year 1667, implying that the dead body might have been laying in peat since the end of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century. The police officers who were summoned to the site notified archeologist, the body was thorouhgly examined and later buried in Peetri cemetary. The clothes and the brooch of the woman are kept in the Estonian National Museum.
Two stories have been written down in Rabivere that might shed some light on the event. According to the first one there was a woman who frequently crossed the bog to visit the tavern. This was not liked by her husband, so he killed her and hid the body in the bog. The other story tells the tale of a girl named Truuta who had hung herself on the edge of the bog because of an unhappy love story. Because suiciders are not allowed to be buried inside the churchyard, Truuta was buried in the bog.
We will probably never know who the Woman of Rabivere really was. In any case, it is a rare finding, and thus far the only one of its kind in Estonia.

Sources:
Haruldane soomuumia Hageri turbarabast. 1936. Postimees. 2 May
Kama, P., Rammo, R. 2012. Rabivere soost leitud mumifitseerunud naise surnukeha: õnnetusjuhtum, mõrv või traditsiooniline käitumine? Tutulus Müür, A. 2006. Rabivere maastikukaitseala. Eesti Loodus. 2.