Now i don't often get the chance to pick the brains of people like Gloria Nusse who do such fascinating things such as facial reconstruction so when i had the opportunity to not only read her book but ask her about her work reconstructing ancient remains i jumped at the chance. And now i get to share that with all of you! As someone who has an obsession with Ancient Egypt i love the idea that we could look into the faces of the pharaohs and others whom we've found the tombs and mummies of and see them as close to how others would have seen them when they were alive.
Thank you again to Partners In Crime book tours and Gloria Nusse for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of this fascinating book to read.
Guest Post on reconstructing ancient remains
The hard part of ancient remains is the condition of the remains, such
as if they are damaged and incomplete. So choosing which remains
can be reconstructed is a large part of the process.
Then the condition of the remains dictates how the reconstruction can
be started. Meaning are the remains going to be scanned and 3-D
printed, or can a mold be made or do the remains need to only
duplicated in clay by the artist. All of these methods will affect the
reconstruction. For the Bahrain reconstructions they were scanned
and 3-d printed. The young boy was missing half o the facial bones so
those were duplicated in the scan and flipped. This changed the
natural asymmetry of the face. I had to recreate what I could using
the cranium and the mandible. For the old man we scanned and
printed each fragment of the skull and then reassembled the pieces
after. I thin the later method created a more natural asymmetry.
Then I used the oldest tissue depth data I had from the 1800’s.I also
took care with what could be learned from the teeth as this reflects
diet and lifestyle. I also researched hairstyles and clothing of 4000
years ago using painting, carvings and Egyptian cylinder seals and
hieroglyphs of that era. This gave me cultural context. I spent a lot of
time on this part.
I also checked myself using current populations of Bahrain men for
general hair texture, facial structure and facial expression. The young
boy was harder as the data was for adults so I had to regress him in
age. I made a notebook of all my research on the figures and their
lifestyle in order to get a feel for life at that time. I especially wanted
to know how they made cloth for clothing. I bought raw silk to
replicate this. I consulted with several archeologists, anthropologists
and visited the ancient history study department library at Berkeley.
