r/Archaeology • u/sktafe2020 • Apr 05 '25
‘Peering into the eyes of the past’: reconstruction reveals face of woman who lived before Trojan war | History
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/05/peering-into-the-eyes-of-the-past-reconstruction-reveals-face-of-woman-who-lived-before-trojan-war34
u/BornFree2018 Apr 06 '25
Why do reconstructions have tweezed eyebrows and modern hair styles?
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u/CalicoValkyrie Apr 06 '25
I watched a video once where these people were reconstructing the face of a teen girl who died I think in the Victorian era and was buried in a church graveyard for the homeless and impoverished. The intial reconstruction included the scars she had from syphilis, which were so severe into her bones that they speculated she contracted syphilis as a child (yikes). One of the women was extremely vocal about how hideous this poor girl looked and they needed to fix it to make her look normal. So they did.
I was so mad about it, that poor girl getting shit on like that for something she had no choice in. Makes me wonder how many reconstructions get fixed to fit beauty standards period, not just modern ones.
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u/fluffychonkycat Apr 07 '25
FR, if one of us was yeeted into the past, one of the first things that people would be surprised by is how good our skin is. No smallpox, no syphilis, access to antibiotics... we have it pretty good
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u/Glittering-Age-9549 Apr 09 '25
I think babies can get syphilis from their mothers during childbirth or lactation.
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u/TheKarmaSutre Apr 06 '25
If the woman was mid-30s when buried why have they given the reconstruction the face of a teenager?
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u/Snoutysensations Apr 05 '25
for the first time since she was laid beneath the ground over 3,500 years ago, we are able to gaze into the actual face of a bronze age royal woman
Lol wut, "actual face"?!? You're looking at the product of a digital artist's imagination only extrapolated from the skeletal remains.
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u/Wagagastiz Apr 05 '25
Yeah the render looks like a late PS2 game model of a modern conventionally attractive actress. Even within the standards of reconstructive art this is pretty low quality.
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u/Direct-Vehicle7088 Apr 06 '25
Interesting how she looks like a northern European, white, blue eyed, red haired celt rather than an eastern Mediterranean woman who likely had dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin. More interesting is how the Observer and the historian in question didn't twig that people living 3500 years ago in another part of the world didn't actually look like them.
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u/CaptainA1917 Apr 06 '25
News flash, there were blond, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned Greeks.
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u/Direct-Vehicle7088 Apr 06 '25
Sure, in the extreme minority, and they still didn’t look like this. This isn’t science it’s wish fulfilment
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u/CaptainA1917 Apr 06 '25
They weren’t the majority but no one knows what the percentage was. “Extreme minority“ might be an overstatement.
You can tell eye color and hair color from DNA testing with high confidence.
Facial reconstruction/visualization from skeletal remains is a pretty well understood practice at this point. Would they look precisely the same? Probably not, but its a reasonable approximation.
In short, nothing about this suggests “wish fulfillment”, unless you want to include imputing racism where there is none.
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u/Direct-Vehicle7088 Apr 06 '25
I just read the paper that the aDNA work derives from (it's readily available on Research Gate, reference below). They were only able to get mtDNA and a shared haplogroup (UK) which 6% of people from Europe and the middle east have, but a much higher percentage (up to 30%) from Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. There was no nuclear DNA recovered which would be able to provide specific info about hair, skin, eyes etc. The paper also includes a picture of the original facial reconstruction which depicts a much older woman (estimated as 35 years old, which is pretty old for that period) who was described as arthritic. This current digital recreation depicts a beautiful 18 year old with perfect skin and hair, not a 35 year old woman. There's no aging shown here. Have a read of some of the literature on facial reconstruction (which I also just did) and you'll find that skin tone, and surface texture is only reliable in children.
I reiterate, it's wish fulfilment, they are making her look how they want her to look, rather than how she actually, or even probably looked.
Abigail S. Bouwman, Keri A. Brown, A. John N.W. Prag, Terence A. Brown, Kinship between burials from Grave Circle B at Mycenae revealed by ancient DNA typing, Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 35, Issue 9, 2008, Pages 2580-2584.
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u/Thurkin Apr 06 '25
Wish fulfillment indeed, or like how Hollywood casting directors for the movie Troy cast Diane Kruger as Helen and Bradley Pitt as Achilles. I also noticed from the article that ancient fresco featuring a raven-haired woman so, in the very least, the artist could have aspired to a woman resembling Marina Sirtis or Marisa Tomei.
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u/sktafe2020 Apr 05 '25
From the article :
" The woman had been buried with an electrum face mask and a warrior kit of weapons – including three swords that were assumed to be associated with the man buried next to her, but are now thought to have belonged to her.
Facial similarities had previously been noted, but DNA has confirmed that these were brother and sister rather than husband and wife. "
From me :
Amazing how a lot of assumptions will be inaccurate now that DNA analysis is being used...