A “powerful, perhaps even scary” woman buried with a silver tiara in Bronze Age Spain now has a practically reconstructed face showing her wearing a calm expression and huge hoop earrings dangling from earplugs.
Earlier this year, announced researchers they had discovered the remains of the woman and a man buried together in a large ceramic pot buried in what was probably an ancient palace. The man had died a few years before the woman; after she died at a later date, someone opened the pot again and placed her body next to his. Now using the partial skull and jewelry from the funeral, a scientific illustrator has digitally recreated the woman’s face, as well as the faces of others buried at the site, known as La Almoloya.
“The biggest challenge with this facial reconstruction was that the upper part of her skull did not survive the times,” said Joana Bruno, the freelance scientific illustrator who created the digital reconstructions and a collaborator with the La Almoloya archaeologists at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, told WordsSideKick.com in an email. “Fortunately, the diadem (the silver crown) was found in place around her head, so that gives us a measure of her head, but it was still a challenge. “
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The diadem-wearing woman’s identity has fascinated scientists since archaeologists unveiled her funeral in 2014. Her lavish funeral goods – including the diadem, pearl necklaces, silver-shaped rings, bracelets, spiral hairpins and earplugs with spirals, as well as a silver-edged drinking pot and silver handle, a tool used to shred textiles – is of superior quality and is more valuable than goods buried with the man, Researchers have previously told WordsSideKick.com. Perhaps these riches indicate that the woman had more power than her funeral partner, especially given that she survived him and was still buried with treasured goods, the researchers said at the time.
When Bruno decided to recreate the woman’s face digitally, it was partly due to the place’s impressive preservation of many of its original inhabitants. “La Almoloya is just a fascinating time capsule,” she said. “And since DNA can tell us more about their kinship, it is also an opportunity to see if these faces somehow carry similar features that could suggest these commonalities. “
Before any virtual reconstruction, anthropologists cleanse, stabilize, and study the skeleton of the deceased to determine the person’s gender, age of death, general health, and other characteristics. “This information is always taken into account when making the face reconstruction,” Bruno said. In the case of the Bronze Age woman, she died at the age of 25 to 30 years old and had several congenital conditions, including a missing cervical vertebra and ribs.
Next, Bruno takes specific measurements of the skull and does a laser scan of the skull and lower jaw. “The laser scan allows me to work with a digital copy of the original and minimize the manipulation of the bones, which are fragile objects,” she said. Later, to “liberate” the face, Bruno relies on published techniques for the speculative process of estimating the position of facial features, such as eyes, nose, and mouth, and determining the thickness of the tissues, she said.
“By doing this, I begin to ‘map’ the surface of the skin, and layer by layer a face begins to appear,” Brunos said. However, she had to guess. To clarify which bones did not survive, Bruno made them gray and transparent in a video showing the reconstruction process.
“The earlobes were a more straightforward decision,” Bruno said. “The earplugs you see in the facial reconstruction were found in her grave, one on each side of her skull. I used laser scans of the earplugs and the tiara in the facial reconstruction.”
The whole process and Bruno’s collaboration with anthropologists highlight “the ability to estimate and ‘rebuild’ missing skeletal parts with the highest possible accuracy and without damaging the original,” Cristina Rihuete Herrada, professor of archeology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a co. researcher of the 2021 survey, told WordsSideKick.com in an email. “Thanks to the 3D laser scan of the jewels, Joana has been able to show us that woman’s stunning glittering look.”
Bruno is now creating archeological reconstructions of other El Argar people from La Almoloya “using the faces I reconstructed from their skulls, including the information generated by the archaeological and genetic research, “she said.” It is important to be aware that these bones we now see were real people, with their own domestic dramas, which laughed when someone told a joke that took care of their loved ones and lived in a completely different world than our own. “
Originally published on Live Science.
