10 Amazing Facial Reconstructions Of Ancient Skulls

Listverse ^ | August 18, 2016 | Jana Louise Smit

[SunkenCiv]

Photo credit: Philippe Charlier

[BobL]

#1 looks gay.

[pepsionice]

Looks like a “Marvin” to me.

[Red Badger]

Looks like Peter O’Toole.....................

[Red Badger]

[Mrs. Don-o]

Good Lord.

Could be.

Could very well be.

[publius911]

10 Amazing Facial Reconstructions Of Ancient Skulls

They may be amazing, but are they accurate?
Who can make that judgement?

[publius911]

#1 looks gay.

The explanation is simple.
The "reconstructionist" is likely gay...

[Dr. Zzyzx]

Take the skull of someone who has died that we have a photo of and hand it to these guys to see how close they come.

[WKUHilltopper]

“Who can make that judgement?”

The artist. The artist made a selective, subjective judgment.

[publius911]

Take the skull of someone who has died that we have a photo of and hand it to these guys to see how close they come.

Yup.

One of the classic fallacies, appeal to authority (or "experts.")

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, Chapter XVII (Pg 209)

[BobL]

“The explanation is simple.
The “reconstructionist” is likely gay...”

Good point, so he reflects his ‘lifestyle’ in his work product. Wouldn’t be the first time!

[Cold Heart]

It’s over 50 years since I read Life on the Mississippi. Need to read it again for a different perspective.

[StAntKnee]

Isn’t that the same guy Stormy Daniels id’d as threatening her for coming out?

[PapaBear3625]

Take the skull of someone who has died that we have a photo of and hand it to these guys to see how close they come.

Much of the technology comes from forensic reconstruction, where they do a reconstruction and then try matching it against missing people. In those cases, they do often get feedback on how well they did.

[SunkenCiv]

The other faces:

1. The Face Of God (based on the S. of Turin)
2. St. Anthony
3. Dante
4. The Flores Woman
   • Homo Floresiensis keyword
5. The Stirling Knight
   • Skeleton reveals violent life and death of medieval knight
   • Tyrannical English king 'buried in Scotland' [ Richard II ]
6. The French Mummy
7. The Silla Skull
   • Bizarre, Long-Headed Woman from Ancient Kingdom Revealed
   • Rare Skull From Korea's Silla Kingdom Reconstructed
8. The Girl Of Uchter Moor
   • Bog Mummy Mistaken For Murder Victim (Germany)
   • Corpses on the Moors: A Vampire Graveyard in Northern Europe?
9. The USS Monitor
   • Faces of Civil War sailors from sunken USS Monitor reconstructed in hopes of identifying them
   • USS Monitor keyword
10. The Mary Rose Archer
    • Divers Find Piece Of Henry VIII's Warship [2003]
    • Preserving a 460 year old wreck [2005]
    • Time Changes Modern Human's Face [2006]
    • Just What Did The Mary Rose Tell Us? [2007]
    • Mary Rose sunk by French cannonball [2008]
    • Living relatives of Mary Rose crew may be identified through DNA [2013]
    • Preserving the Mary Rose [2014]
11. Ava [we actually have no topics about her! But her remains were found in 1987]

[SunkenCiv]

[Yaelle]

Must be a highlander.

[SunkenCiv]

:^D

[SunkenCiv]

as PapaBear3625, yeah, these reconstructions are very close to the original, as they are based on the average depth of tissue over each part of the skull. If DNA is available, skin, eye, and hair color and ethnicitiy can be made much more accurate, leading to a further improvement of the likeness. When the remains are of an historical figure for whom a contemporary photo, portrait, or sculpture exists, comparisons can be made (such as happened with Robespierre, Richard III, King Tut, etc).