From the New York State Museum and artist Gay Malin (and via Giavasan), the Facial Reconstruction page is a a step-by-step description of how artists go about rebuilding the features of a long-dead person, based only on the shape of their skull. This page focuses on the reconstruction of facial features from a skull of a woman who died 300 years ago in Albany, with a lot of interesting detail about how the artist decides on unknowable features like ear shape and body fat measures.
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But you need to put a link to the actual facial reconstruction page — http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/research/anthropology/crsp/arccrsppearlstfacial.html in your blog. It’s pretty cool.
Oh btw — at the Tennessee Williams festival, we saw Patricia Brady on a panel about writing about presidents. She wrote Martha Washington : An American Life and the pic on the cover is a “scientific” regression to show what she probably looked like as a young woman.
Oh, duh! Thanks….
I’m definitely not a fan of it since “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” I’VE SEEN MUCH BETTER. Shame on “National Geographic” for promoting such narrow-minded nonsense.
Kris,
I took a more thorough look at the website that you recommended. I see forensic facial reconstruction as a tool that works a lot better with more recent samples and when a scholar with no political agenda performs it. Thank you for including it in your website.