A SKULL whose discovery sparked an Astley murder hunt will go on display nearly 2000 years after being sacrificed.

When the skull was found in 1958 by a peat moss worker, police combed mossland and wild rumours involving skeletons, murder and a horde of gold flew round Astley village.

But the murder hunt was abandoned when doctors declared the skull to be at least 100 years old.

Then in 1987 scientists and historians re-examined the skull and discovered it was actually about 2000 years old and had been remarkably preserved in the peatbog just on Worsley Moss worked from Astley peat works' in Nook Lane.

Now a facial reconstruction of the Iron Age skull is underway at Manchester University and Manchester Museum bosses plan to showcase "Worsley Man" -- known locally as 'Pete Bog' -- in an exhibition later this year.

Dr John Prag, keeper of Archeology at Manchester Museum, said: "The reason we are doing this is, first of all, it gives us a chance to reconstruct what he looked like and to study him, and secondly, the general public will be able to see what one of their ancestor's looked like.

"It's not being done in a disrespectful way, but in a thoughtful way. It shows what we can learn from human remains."

Dr Prag believes "Pete Bog" bears all the hallmarks of a Celtic sacrificial death.

He appears to have undergone a "triple sacrifice," as his skull was bludgeoned, his throat cut, and then garrotted before being decapitated -- the garrotte is still present.

It is not known whether "Pete Bog", who was aged between 20 and 30, was a willing participant or not.

According to Dr Prag, the decapitation probably had a lot to do with the Celtic 'cult of the head.'

"They believed that the spirit of a person was in the head. This was not barbarism -- they were acting out of deeply held beliefs."

Bogs and water were also held to be sacred by the Celts, who believed they were gateways into the next world.

To reconstruct "Pete Bog's" face, CT scans have been taken at Christie's Hospital. Every millimetre of the skull has been x-rayed and a computer programme will later help re-construct the face.

Dr Prag said they will have to make an educated guess as to the colour of the man's hair, eyes and skin, although the proportions of the face will be completely accurate.

A radiocarbon date places 'Pete' at around 100-200 AD.

He was found on August 18, 1958, by John Connelly as he was walling peat blocks in an isolated spot just inside the Worsley bundary, about two miles from Astley Green village.

Despite an intensive five day police search over 252 acres of land there was no sign of the rest of the body and the register of missing persons yielded nothing.

The skull consisted of the upper and lower jawbones, some teeth and two and a half segments of spine. There was still some skin above the right ear, some grey and light brown hair on the beard areas and hair on the back of the head was a reddish colour.

A 1958 inquest heard that the skull was between 100 and 500 years old and the jury returned an open verdict.

The remains were kept in a perspex box at the Museum of the Pathology Department of the Manchester Medical School until 1987 when a multi-disciplinary team was assembled to review the 1958 findings.

The skull has featured in a special 'bog bodies' display in Denmark and was also exhibited for a few months alongside "Lindow Man" -- the well preserved 2,000 year old body found in Lindow Moss, Cheshire.

Bog Body facts

Over the past three centuries the remains of more than 200 individuals were recovered from peat deposits in Great Britain and Ireland -- although very few have undergone extensive examination.

Bog bodies are generally only found in Northern Europe and date back to the Iron Age ( between 400 BC and AD 400,) during the time of the Roman Empire.

Early Europeans thought bogs were places where they could communicate with gods, goddesses and dead relatives. they often made offerings to the bogs.

Bogs preserve bodies because they do not permit flesh decaying bacteria to grow and also contain acids that tan the skin.

Other bog bodies

rENGLAND'S most famous "bog body" is the Lindow Man, who was found in a block of peat in 1984 on Lindow Moss, Cheshire.

He died between AD 50 and AD 100 and is also generally thought to have been sacrificed.

Lindow Man is on display at the British Museum, London.