Mikhail Gerasimov (1907 – 1970) was a Soviet archaeologist and anthropologist who developed the first technique of forensic sculpture based on findings of anthropology, archaeology, paleontology, and forensic science. He studied the skulls and meticulously reconstructed the faces of more than 200 people, ranging from the earliest excavated homo sapiens and Neanderthals, to the Middle Ages monarchs and dignitaries, including Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv, and Ivan the Terrible of Suzdal.
Below is a translation of a chapter from his book published in 1949:
“In 1936, in the Murzak-Koba grotto in Crimea, S.N. Bibikov discovered a double burial while dismantling the cultural layer of the Azil-Tardenoise period. An elderly man and a young woman were buried at the same time. Both skeletons were carefully restored and studied by E.V. Zhirov, who classified them as typical representatives of the Cro-Magnon type.
He has a high arch, sharp dolichocrania, a very wide face, low rectangular eye sockets, a small pear-shaped opening with sharply protruding nasal bones, a strong superciliary arch, a massive lower jaw, and a powerful chin.
Probably, the individual feature of this skull is the so-called stepped bite, as a result of which the lower jaw is strongly extended forward. The reconstructed portrait based on this skull gives a clear idea of the typical facial features of a Cro-Magnon man of the end of the Paleolithic.
The steep, wide forehead is weighed down by a powerful brow ridge, which, however, does not at all give the face a primitive character, but rather emphasizes its strength; the narrow, high nose with a deeply sunken bridge amazes with the beauty of its outline; the deep-set eyes had characteristic overhanging outer corners of the upper eyelid.
The truly enormous width of the face is leveled by its strong horizontal profiling; the mouth is wide, sharply orthognathous with a somewhat swollen, protruding lower lip. The lower jaw is strong, with a distinct, strongly developed chin (in the reconstruction, the chin is leveled by the beard).
The neck is strong, the head is set straight, the overall impression is a harmonious combination of strength and intelligence, and there is no hint of primitiveness or the outward wildness of a primitive man.
The female skull from the Murzak-Koba grotto is also undoubtedly typically Cro-Magnon, and yet it is, of course, quite different from the male one.
Its bones are thinner, the microrelief is smoothed, the brow ridges are weaker, the arch is more rounded, the eye sockets are higher, the cheekbones are thinner and narrower, and the lower jaw is thinner and lighter. The head reconstructed on this craniological basis amazes with the harmony of features, which is not hindered by either the general massiveness of the face or its great width.
In this face, undoubtedly, great physical strength is harmoniously combined with a certain softness and femininity of the entire appearance. Busts of people from the Murzak-Koba grotto are exhibited in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, along with their authentic bones.”
“Cradle of Civilizations” book shows the reconstructed faces of the rulers of the Mycenaean Civilization who lived in the 2nd millennium BC and were the ancestors of the heroes of Homer’s Illiad.
Gerasimov’s reconstruction of Vsevolod Bui Tur from Chernigiv >
