Ancient Faces

Here is Tsar Ivan the Terrible:

en.wikipedia.org...

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"Tsar Ivan the Terrible of Russia. Reconstruction by M.Gerasimov, Soviet archaeologist and anthropologist who developed the first technique of forensic sculpture. 1965"

[edit on 25-11-2009 by berenike]

Here is Meresamun a priestess-musician in the temple of Amun:

www.archaeology.org...

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She was more than just a pretty face. The ancient Egyptian Meresamun, who lived around 800 B.C., was a working girl, a priestess-musician who served Amun, the preeminent deity of Thebes. Her mummified remains, sealed 2,800 years ago in a skintight coffin of cartonnage (layers of linen and plaster), were examined by researchers at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute in September 2008 using the latest in CT scanning technology, a "256-slice" machine that produced startlingly vivid images. For months, she has since been the immensely popular subject of the Oriental Institute Museum's exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt.

Bit of info on her mummy and sarcophagus:

www.archaeology.org...

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[edit on 25-11-2009 by berenike]

This is reconstruction was based on a mummy thought to be Queen Nefertiti:

clippednews.wordpress.com...

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Egyptologists believe they have recreated the face of the legendary Queen Nefertiti. A picture of the Egyptian ruler was built up by a team which discovered a mummy in what is thought to be her tomb.

Mummy:

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Famous bust:

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[edit on 25-11-2009 by berenike]

Originally posted by nik1halo
reply to post by Nventual

 

I believe that the ears and nose continue to grow throughout your life

A more likely scenario is that they stay the same while the rest of the facial structure shrinks with time (due to loss of bone mass and collagen).




[edit on 25-11-2009 by Vanitas]

I am not sure how to post picture here so this is a link showing the face of the STAR CHILD:

www.alienufoart.com...

Originally posted by Hemlocks
I am not sure how to post picture here so this is a link showing the face of the STAR CHILD:

www.alienufoart.com...

Ah OK, it's just a deformed mentally retarded child.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by berenike

 

This is very odd OP. It was just two days ago I was thinking of this very thread. For quite a while now I have been hoping someone would pick up the task of facial reconstruction on a few of these. I bet they're frightening.

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[edit on 25-11-2009 by randyvs]

I would love to see a reconstruction of this as well. However, I fear that any attempt would likely be done by a Uofologist/Facial Reconstructionist or other person with bias agenda...much like the UFO Hunters did on that "Star Child" skull.

Originally posted by Aggie Man

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by berenike

 

This is very odd OP. It was just two days ago I was thinking of this very thread. For quite a while now I have been hoping someone would pick up the task of facial reconstruction on a few of these. I bet they're frightening.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/376b1f8ab615.jpg[/atsimg]



Could not this elongated head be caused by the wearing of tight fitting rings, around the head, since at an early age? Maybe the natives thought this look was attractive?





[edit on 25-11-2009 by randyvs]

I would love to see a reconstruction of this as well. However, I fear that any attempt would likely be done by a Uofologist/Facial Reconstructionist or other person with bias agenda...much like the UFO Hunters did on that "Star Child" skull.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by berenike

 

This is very odd OP. It was just two days ago I was thinking of this very thread. For quite a while now I have been hoping someone would pick up the task of facial reconstruction on a few of these. I bet they're frightening.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/376b1f8ab615.jpg[/atsimg]

Could not this elongated head be caused by the wearing of tight fitting rings, around the head, since at an early age? Maybe the natives thought this look was attractive?






[edit on 25-11-2009 by randyvs]

Reconstruction of Queen Nefertiti

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Here's a ten year old boy from Medieval times:

www.archeologie.eindhoven.nl...

Marcus of Eindhoven:

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The aim in digging up the skeleton from the middle layer was to ascertain how well preserved the bones were. The skeleton turned out to be that of a ten-year-old. A pierced silver coin was found lying on this skeleton; attached to which were a tiny scrap of textile and a few threads of silk. The coin was a Venetian groat dating from 1202-1342. It was not possible to date it more accurately because the rim was so worn away. The sex of the child was impossible to assess from the bones. However, investigations at the Laboratory for Forensic Genetics and Molecular Archaeology in Louvain University showed that some DNA had been preserved in a tooth. This meant that the sex could be determined and it was a boy. This lead to the development of a plastic doll with a forensically reconstructed face, which was given the name 'Marcus of Eindhoven'. He has accidentally come to be the personification of the medieval history of the town

[edit on 25-11-2009 by berenike]

The purported Skull of W.A. Mozart (Johannes Chrystostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus [=Amadeus ] Sigismundus Mozart) is problematic (lots of teeth missing and now...alas...someone took the lower jaw away after 1902) but it seems that he had a slight (and charming?) 'over-bite.'

The skull was unearthed in early 1801 by Joseph Rothmayr from the Alte St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna, his predecessor at Sr Marx having marked the grave (dumped in with 4 other corpses in a 3rd class funeral) with a wire purportedly on the evening of 7-8th December 1791. Presumably Rothmayr was instructed to break up the bones in that part of the cemetary (3rd class) to make room for, well...more bodies in 1801.

The Skull made its rounds in Vienna by doctors who were called Phrenologiests (the craze lasted from about 1795 to 1870)

It shows a man who never reached a height of more than 4'11" (same size as Judy Garland/Frances Ethel Gumm or Gloria Swanson &tc. if you want a more modern comparison--short even for his own day apparently) so we are talking with someone who was 'short' but with a slightly larger head than normal (literally and figuretively speaking !)...with a proponderance of fine fair (reddish-blondish-light browninsh after age 22) 'of which he was rather vain'...

Still, the pictures done during his life are far different than the later fantasy images of him making look more like a handsome version of Beethoven rather than what the Doris Stock silverpoint Drawing made him out to be (drawn from life by a silverpoint artist)...

cache2.asset-cache.net...

His brother in law Josef Lange (who married Constanza Mozart's sister Aloyisia, the former love of Mozart's early 20s life) did a fairly decent job of capturing the features of his 'mercurial' face that always twitched like a bird--full of constantly being-worked-out-melodies and lyrical rhymes, no doubt....

The Skull

tvsales.orf.at...

(or what purportedly remains of it, now housed at the Salzburg Mozarteum) shows large orbits where the eye sockets were (interestingly, Mozart was attracted to women also with large eyes, such as Mdme. Storace of England, who sang the first Susanna in Figaro in 1786)

msnbcmedia.msn.com...

Apparently Mozart did NOT like to be painted 'en-face' (frontally) but rather in profile (to show off his large and 'regal' probuscus, no doubt) but here is one that might be a genuine en-face done from life (or from a sketch c. 1785, later painted in)

www.classical-composers.org...


His sister Maria Anna Mozart ('Nannerl') despite her failing eyesight, said this portrait was the closest to what he really looked like up close (painted by Barbara Krafft in 1801 from the family Portrait of 1780)

3.bp.blogspot.com...

It would be fascinating for a reconstructive artist trained in the arts reflected in other examples on this thread to take a stab at Mozart's face and upper torso-neck &tc. but they would have to rely on the so called Death Mask (5 Dec 1791) as well as Doris Stock's April 1789 Silverpoint sketch if they want anything like verisimilitude...

Although the so called Death Mask made by neighbour the morning of his death (who was a waxworks artist) has been descried in certain circles, it is very appealing to me as an accurate representation of what his face would have looked like, albeit after a serious final illness, although the original apparently got busted up by the widow after 1800 (it was said that Constanza 'accidentally smashed' (!) the original Death Mask of her husband while dusting one afternoon and 'was glad that ugly old thing was broken !' ) : here is the copy that somehow managed to survive Constanza's dust bin (middle image) which looks authentic to me, at least...the skin shows a fine rash all over the face (called 'miliaria' pimples) which was mentioned in the death certificate ('hitzigtes frieselfieber' - high fever with a miliaria rash) so that clinches it for me.

www.exulanten.com...

Maybe Constanza preferred to remember his face the way it looked BEFORE his final illness, with all the concomitant confusion and disarray that took place immediately after Baron van Swieten took over the arrangements of shall we say discarding the body from prying eyes of the public (rumours of poisoning are always touchy in Masonic circles !)









[edit on 25-11-2009 by Sigismundus]

Here's Dante:

dienekes.blogspot.com...


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the face of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Since the Dante’s sepulchre will be opened in 2021, the reconstructive process is based on morphological and metric data collected on the poet’s cranium during the formal identification of his remains in 1921 by the anthropologist Fabio Frassetto, as well as on the resulting plaster model. Starting from this plaster model and a morphologically compatible reference mandible, since the original mandible was never found, a 3D digital model of the complete skull was obtained by reverse engineering and virtual modelling techniques. The most important aspect in this work was the method of virtual modelling proposed for the ex novo generation of the mandible. The physical model of the skull (cranium + mandible) was then produced by means of a rapid prototyping system. This model was finally used to recreate Dante’s face via traditional facial reconstruction techniques currently used in forensic anthropology.

[edit on 25-11-2009 by berenike]

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck


Along with reconstructions, though, we also have very well-preseved remains that are found in peat bogs...a whole 'nother story there.
Here is Tollund Man, who lived in Denmark in the 4th century BC, and discovered in 1950.

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He had been garroted, and tossed into the bog. A long sleep...

I do apologise if this is regarded as a more morbid contribution, but it is, indeed, an ancient face and he retains a great deal of dignity in his repose.

I found a reconstruction of Tollund Man:

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I'll be very interested to see the results of this investigation if the scientists are given the go-ahead to exhume Leonardo Da Vinci's remains. They want to do a facial reconstruction to see if the Mona Lisa was, in fact, a self portrait:

www.timesonline.co.uk...

Scientists seeking permission to exhume the remains of Leonardo da Vinci plan to reconstruct his face to discover whether his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, is a disguised self-portrait.

A team from Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage, a leading association of scientists and art historians, has asked to open the tomb in which the Renaissance painter and polymath is believed to lie at Amboise castle, in the Loire valley, where he died in 1519, aged 67.

Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist, said the project could throw new light on Leonardo’s most famous work. “If we manage to find his skull, we could rebuild Leonardo’s face and compare it with the Mona Lisa,” he said.

The identity of the Mona Lisa has been debated for centuries, with speculation ranging from Leonardo’s mother to Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant.

Some scholars have suggested that Leonardo’s presumed homosexuality and love of riddles led him to paint himself as a woman.

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[edit on 24-1-2010 by berenike]

reply to post by nik1halo


I believe you when you say these reconstructions are based on accepted practice - and are considered reliable - but it would still be interesting to see reconstructions of known faces from skulls. There has to be some acceptable margin of error, I would be curious to see the results myself.

Just to update - the mummy thought to have been Nefertiti has now been identified as the sister of Pharoah Akhenaten and the mother of Tutankhamun, who was the result of an incestuous union between the two.

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www.dailymail.co.uk...

The battle-scarred face of a medieval knight who was killed some 700 years ago has been revealed with the help of forensic skills employed in popular TV shows such as CSI.
The skeleton of the warrior, who was killed at the time of Scotland's Wars of Independence with England, was discovered under the floor of a chapel at Stirling Castle.
Now a team at Dundee University, led by world-renowned forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, have revealed what he would have looked like.

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[edit on 27-5-2010 by berenike]

Originally posted by Tippys Dad
reply to post by nik1halo

 

I believe you when you say these reconstructions are based on accepted practice - and are considered reliable - but it would still be interesting to see reconstructions of known faces from skulls. There has to be some acceptable margin of error, I would be curious to see the results myself.

Here ya go mate. Judge for yourself.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b73f61919f1f.jpg[/atsimg]

Source

BTW, I was wrong about your nose and ears growing throughout your life, it's just a popular urban myth.

[edit on 27-5-2010 by nik1halo]

Here are some images of Neanderthals reconstructed. They are not like the images we come to know of the brutish, slumped, monkey men. They were quite modern human looking and were also very intelligent. They didnt completely die off and have been said to have bred themselves with modern humans.