These three people have been dead for over 700 years – researchers have now succeeded in bringing their faces back to life.
In 1957, construction workers stumbled upon three stone coffins near a medieval crypt in Whithorn, Scotland.
Dozens of graves containing human remains are gradually being uncovered during excavations at the site.
But what did people look like back then and how did they live in Scotland?
That’s what the Cold Case Whithorn research group wants to find out.
“These reconstructions are an excellent opportunity to reflect on who these people from our past really were, about their everyday life, their hopes, their beliefs”. Julia Muir Watt, Development Manager of the Trust.
The researchers are digitizing the faces of three people who lived in the Middle Ages: a bishop, a young woman and a clergyman.
According to the researchers, they lived in the county of Wigtownshire between the 12th and 14th centuries and are buried in the Dumfries and Galloway region.
Based on radiocarbon dating, artifacts, historical records, and isotope analysis, archaeologists and forensic scientists identified one body as Bishop Walter.
The bishop appears to have been buried prominently – his skeleton shows signs of obesity.
The woman cannot be identified by researchers.
However, their head is very symmetrical, which, according to the scientists, indicates a particularly beautiful appearance.
She died in her twenties and was buried on a bed of shells.
The cleric cannot be identified either.
But recreating his face poses a “unique challenge” for researchers due to his cleft palate and asymmetrical face.
But how do you actually reconstruct faces from the Middle Ages?
Archaeological scientist Adrian Evans creates 3D scans of the skulls.
Forensic artist Christopher Rynn then uses the 3D images to digitally reproduce the faces of the three bodies as realistically as possible.
“This involves the use of facial soft tissue, custom-sculpted musculature to fit each skull, and scientific methods of estimating every facial feature such as eyes, nose, mouth, and ears from skull morphology,” Christopher Rynn.
Shirley Curtis-Summers is an archaeologist who does isotopic analysis of burials.
Isotopes are atomic types of an element that every human being takes in from birth through food, air and water and thus has an individual isotope signature.
Isotope testing allows researchers to analyze the body of a deceased, where exactly he lived.
“This project is of tremendous importance because although we can never tell the full story of the lives of these medieval people, being able to reconstruct their diet, mobility and now their faces allows us to delve into their past and come face to face with them meet.” Shirley Curtis-Summers.