Facial Reconstruction of Mycaenean era (c.1500 BC) nobleman from ancient Greece

kostop

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The face of a nobleman (possibly warrior/priest) who lived in Pylos, Greece, near the location of King Nestor's palace and around the same time period, has been reconstructed by scientists from the University of Cincinnati and presented during an event hosted by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
The remains of the man were found in an undisturbed tomb, which contained an unusual number of valuable items such as rings, paintings, other jewellery, combs, mirrors etc, leading archaeologists to believe that he was a high profile individual.
The colour of his features has been chosen based on a painting found next to him in his grave, which will be presented to the public later in the year.

http://news.in.gr/culture/article/?aid=1500106412
The article is in Greek, I will check the UoC website in case they have something

3B556A0AD8FF04E39D36C494CD72007C.jpg
 
wow, looks like cro-magnon

3B556A0AD8FF04E39D36C494CD72007C.jpg

44397-004-D45BC527.jpg


greek bronze close to cromagnon by C. Brace:

F2.large.jpg
 
We just few years away from being able to read facial characteristics from genetic code. Let's wait a big. In few years these reconstructions will be reconstructed, lol.
 
No offense, but I'm lost when it comes to that pca. Shouldn't Greeks plot with other southern europeans? Why are they closer to Finns than they are to every other European group? Normally they would plot with Italians.
 
We just few years away from being able to read facial characteristics from genetic code. Let's wait a big. In few years these reconstructions will be reconstructed, lol.

You're right.

Plus, I don't see it facially at all, except for the brow bone; cheekbones, nose, face shape, are all different

I think they made him very modern Greek looking:

vamvakoulas.jpg


dimi1.jpg

682d846f998144e9171eb5fbb2ad4671_l.jpg
 
wow, looks like cro-magnon

3B556A0AD8FF04E39D36C494CD72007C.jpg

44397-004-D45BC527.jpg


greek bronze close to cromagnon by C. Brace:

I don't think the two pictures have common features at all; look at cheebones breadth and jaw breadth;and at total ratio breadth-height for face, not speaking of the forehead: inverse trends!
BTW the under picture is not a good model for true 'cromagnoid'; to broad cheebones (bizygomatics) compared to jaw.
 
sorry: my K is weak! cheeKbones
 
Not to say the 'greek' reconstruction has NO C-M trend at all. WHat confidence to have in this? I do'nt know.
 
He looks rather modern Egyptian. Tbh I expected him to have a more northern appearance since he's probably nobility, but now imo he fits better the scenario of a warrior made famous/rich due to his bravery and skills.
 
It looks like me, -except the nose. Especially the colour of the flesh and the blue/black curly hair. But also the bronze reconstruction remind me my mother with her big cheekbones!
Allthough the one is looking very digital; and so in a way non physical as profoundly ordered in almost perfect symmetry, as well the light is coming in front.
The -photo of Bronze, worked in clay-reconstruction is different lightened from two sources with not the same density, so that alone cannot create an expression but a tension for sure, it is a different glazing material in a white font, also it is a mature person-which looks like my mother!- while the mycenean man from Pylos is about ~35. They both share big mouthcave;
@Angela yes is the Griffin warrior.
@Moesan I generally agree with your comments but I think they doing great job to Pylos and will see more to the future, the excavation is from university of Cincinatti and the reconstruction from university of Johanesburg.


anyway
They both are familiar for a reason and both remind me many -today-persons and probably...
Achilles doesnt looked like Brad Pit.
 
I expected him to have a more northern appearance since he's probably nobility, but now imo he fits better the scenario of a warrior made famous/rich due to his bravery and skills.

What makes you think that nobility in ancient Greece had a northern appearance? There is nothing to indicate this except for the wishful thinking of certain 19th century German romanticists and some modern nordicists. I have visited virtually every museum in Greece and 95% of drawings, pottery and statues that survive, depict people with dark Mediterranean features. From the Charioteer of Delphi to votive offerings to the deity of health, Asclepios, provided by (obviously wealthy) Athenians, depicting eyes that had been healed. These were people who could pay for art, a privilege that only the elite could afford back then.
 
What makes you think that nobility in ancient Greece had a northern appearance? There is nothing to indicate this except for the wishful thinking of certain 19th century German romanticists and some modern nordicists. I have visited virtually every museum in Greece and 95% of drawings, pottery and statues that survive, depict people with dark Mediterranean features. From the Charioteer of Delphi to votive offerings to the deity of health, Asclepios, provided by (obviously wealthy) Athenians, depicting eyes that had been healed. These were people who could pay for art, a privilege that only the elite could afford back then.
Obviously I expect the Mycenaean nobility to be MORE Northern looking (not completely) as they originated from Northern lands and were less likely to have mixed with commoners to a large extent by 1500 BC. And being Mediterranean doesn't make u a Southerner.
 
Obviously I expect the Mycenaean nobility to be MORE Northern looking (not completely) as they originated from Northern lands and were less likely to have mixed with commoners to a large extent by 1500 BC. And being Mediterranean doesn't make u a Southerner.

the myth of blond ancient Greeks with blue eyes is over decades now,
all evidences show a brown (mostly dark chestnut colour) population majority,
 
But what about mythology, Hellen of Troy, etc - at least some must have been blond in ancient Greece ?
View attachment 8078


helene of troy was beautifull. not blond,
Blond does not mean beautyfull.

as also Alexander,
the written ssay about Ξανθιζειν towards blond, which in Greek is light brown,
light brown at summer turn to blond
 
Hmm, interesting... I am not an expert of course, but in Iliad itself Hellen of Troy is being described as bright haired.
This article gives the adjectives in Greek about how the Ancient Greeks described hair - Menelaus and Helen being described as bright haired, or you don't think it is right?

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2013/05/06/was-helen-of-troy-a-natural-blonde/


"Consider, for example, the common epithets (nick-names) for different ethnic groups used in ancient Greek literature: the hairy-headed Achaeans (kare komoontes), Abantes (Thracians), known for their long hair (opithen komoontes), and the bright-haired (likely golden, or blonde) Menelaus (xanthos) – including Helen of Troy (described as having bostrychous xanthes komes)."
 
Obviously I expect the Mycenaean nobility to be MORE Northern looking (not completely) as they originated from Northern lands and were less likely to have mixed with commoners to a large extent by 1500 BC. And being Mediterranean doesn't make u a Southerner.

The Mycenaeans were a complete people, not just a royal family. And who were those "commoners" exactly? The Pelasgians? How do you know that they had not also originated from the North?
Blond people existed in ancient Greece just like they exist in modern Greece. I am red/blondish... My point is that there is nothing to associate them with some sort of nobility, contrary to various theories going around in certain fora.
Funnily, it is more likely that they originate from the Pre-Indoeuropean hunter-gatherer substrata that lived there before the Greeks.
Oh, and a 19th century painting of Helen of Troy that probably looks like the artist's girlfriend tells us nothing about Helen's appearance (assuming she existed), just like the paintings of a blond and blue eyed Jesus produced by Europeans during the Renaissance.
 
Hmm, interesting... I am not an expert of course, but in Iliad itself Hellen of Troy is being described as bright haired.
This article gives the adjectives in Greek about how the Ancient Greeks described hair - Menelaus and Helen being described as bright haired, or you don't think it is right?

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2013/05/06/was-helen-of-troy-a-natural-blonde/


"Consider, for example, the common epithets (nick-names) for different ethnic groups used in ancient Greek literature: the hairy-headed Achaeans (kare komoontes), Abantes (Thracians), known for their long hair (opithen komoontes), and the bright-haired (likely golden, or blonde) Menelaus (xanthos) – including Helen of Troy (described as having bostrychous xanthes komes)."

What is light in Italy might be dark in Sweden. The term ξανθός is sometimes translated as yellow but if the population was predominately dark brown and black haired it may have been used for someone with light brown hair.
The term 'ξανθίζειν' was used in ancient text with the meaning turn brown (for meat). I don't want to rule out anything.

If you read ancient texts sometimes you have to check the original. For example:

One, because his nose is tip-tilted,5 you will praise as piquant, the beak of another you pronounce right-royal, the intermediate type you say strikes the harmonious mean, [474e] the swarthy are of manly aspect, the white are children of the gods divinely fair, and as for honey-hued, do you suppose the very word is anything but the euphemistic invention of some lover who can feel no distaste for sallowness when it accompanies the blooming time of youth?

The term 'divinely fair' doesn't exist in the text. It was an addition by the translator. The word translated as 'swarthy' μέλας could have been translated even as black. That is the literal meaning. If we translate λευκοί as white, then we should translate μέλανες as black. But, then you would have Plato saying 'the black are of manly aspect'. The Anglo didn't want that.

There's another one:

Now all those again that inhabited Pelasgian Argos, and dwelt in Alos and Alope and Trachis, and that held Phthia and Hellas, the land of fair women, and were called Myrmidons and Hellenes and Achaeans.

That too, doesn't exist in the text. The correct translation would have been "the land of beautiful women".
 

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