Philip's Face
| Vergina | 40 29 14.80N 22 19 10.32E | The massive - but reconstructed - mound covering the royal tombs can be clearly seen and there are some interesting photographs to go with it. |
| Manchester Museum | 53 27 56.79N 02 14 01.71W | It's not yet an archaeological site, but I thought that anyone planning a visit might be interested in knowing the location of the museum. Like any city centre site, parking is a problem but try the housing estate to the north-east. |
The shape of the human face is heavily dependent on the shape of the underlying skull, for researchers have discovered that the thickness of the flesh over the skull is relatively constant. Ignoring such variable factors as age and obesity, we know, for example, that the thickness of tissue covering the temple falls within a quite narrow range. The same can be said for chin, cheeks and scalp.
Indeed the closeness of the match between face and skull was demonstrated to me by a friend who worked in the forensic department of a national police force. He had been called upon to help identify the newly discovered victims of a serial killer. The police had a list of missing persons, and his task was to discover which - if any - of the recovered skeletons belonged to girls on the list.
These days I suppose the scientists would get all technical with DNA, but he simply enlarged the photographs of the skulls and the faces to the same size and then superimposed the one on the other. It was remarkable the way in which matches could be made or discarded on such simple things as how far apart the eyes were or the length of the chin.
Given the fact that tissue thickness is so constant, imaginative scientists have attempted to reconstruct the faces of individuals based solely upon their skulls. Usually this has been done in order to aid the police in their enquiries when the skeleton of an unknown murder victim is discovered. In some 60% of cases, the result has been sufficiently like the living person that the relatives have been able to come forward and identify the victim.
Spurred on by these successes, archaeologists at various museums have attempted to reconstruct the heads of skulls in their collections. Unlike the reconstructed ape-men, all hairy cheeks and sloping foreheads, these are serious attempts to reproduce the features of the living person and although there are no relatives to come forward and confirm the work, we can be reasonably confident that the results are not unlike the historic person.
A recent visit to the Manchester Museum showed a display of some of these reconstructed heads. The most striking was that of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. It is based on a skull found in tomb 2 at Vergina by Professor M. Andronikus in 1977. Although Philip was cremated, following normal Greek custom, enough of his skull survived to allow a reconstruction of his features, including the injury to his right cheekbone. We know that Philip lost an eye when he was struck by an arrow during the siege of Methone.
Another famous head was that based on a skull found in a burial mound at Sardis traditionally attributed to King Midas. Unfortunately no soft tissue remains on the skull, so that nose and ears are mere guesswork. I was interested to note that the reconstructor chose not to depict the fabulously wealthy monarch with normal ears instead of the asses' ears attributed to him by Greek legend.
Those who wish to discover more about this fascinating but inexact science, may wish to invest £18.99 in the book Making Faces, published by the British Museum Press, ISBN 0714117439.
