February 03, 2011

The many faces of Moora


Here is a 2,600-year old bog woman from Lower Saxony, Germany as reconstructed by forensic scientists (Illustration courtesy Ursula Wittwer-Backofen, University of Freiburg).

And, here is a German language article on the same female which shows many different reconstructions.

By Caroline Wilkinson:



or, by Sabine Ohrlogge:


15 comments:

AdygheChabadi said...

Hmmm, I think the forensic scientists would no better than anyone else concerning re-constructing flesh on bones...many times they have to do that anyway to get an approximation of John/ Jane Doe's appearance.

blogspot said...

reconstruction #2 shows a somewhat mongoloid face.

eurologist said...

I like the renderings by Ursula Wittwer-Backofen (Universität Freiburg) best. Some of the others look rather semi-professional, to put it mildly. I like his one a bit better than the one Dienekes blog page:

http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/01297/cl_moora5_DW_Wisse_1297421p.jpg

At any rate, the ones by Wittwer-Backofen also happen to resemble women living in that area today, at least to some degree.

B.M. said...

The forensic scientist reconstructed a very emancipated 21e century woman.

The drawing of Caroline Wikinson seems to me as a classic German farmers wife.

Fanty said...

Number 3 looks like someone mentaly disabled.

Possibly she was.

The article I read was, that she might have been a slave and that she must have been beaten to the head often. She suffered from a lot of sicknesses, wich must have made her live a hell and she must have suffered by low food minimum the half of all her years.

Her eyes are unusualy close together and Her mouth is very small.

Anonymous said...

They look totally different, especially 1 and 3.

So what is the point of these pictures?

lol

sykes.1 said...

I think this shows that facial reconstruction is pretty much a scam.

Anonymous said...

Number 3 looks like Susan Boyle.

Unknown said...

The first reconstruction is the only one that looks like a teenager. Number 2 would be legitimate for a middle-aged woman and number three looks like a Neanderthaless. Perhaps the forensic artists were not given the age. At any rate, it seems like the "best" reconstruction would be an average of the three.

pconroy said...

Photo #1 bears some resemblance to former German tennis player Steffi Graff.
Photo #2 looks like a space alien
Photo #3 looks very amateurish

So IMO #1 is the most believable.

AdygheChabadi said...

Look at the horrid typo...I shouldn't type so fast.

KNOW is the correct word*

There is/ are some type of measurement(s) they use for the thickness of muscle tissue...I wonder why they did not do it that way???

Bjorn Witlox said...

Or Walt Disney

eurologist said...

Wittwer-Backofen is foremost an anthropologist, but also developed a new reconstruction technique that is being used successfully in police cases. So, she surely has a good background for this type of work.

The girl would not have looked like a well-nourished head of household or main maid, but rather like a sickish, undernourished, poorly dressed and perhaps dirty young woman.

In German:

http://www.stern.de/digital/computer/kriminalistik-computer-helfen-bei-identifizierung-unbekannter-leichen-505118.html

Steven C Perkins said...

New article on Greek scientist who does facial reconstructions:

Q&A: Facing the past: Manolis Papagrigorakis

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/471035a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110303

Steven C Perkins said...

New article on Greek scientist who does facial reconstructions:

Q&A: Facing the past: Manolis Papagrigorakis

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/471035a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110303