3D facial reconstruction of Birger Jarl, 1210 - 1266

[Henrik]

2010 celebrates 800 years of Birger Jarl’s birth. In focus, it is a newly made reconstruction of his face, using forensic techniques accomplished by Swedish artist Oscar Nilsson.

3D reconstruction of faces from skull data - case study "Birger Jarl"

Birger Magnusson (Birger jarl), ~1210-1266 plays an extrordinary important role in Swedish history. He was a "Jarl" which today would be something like a mix of a King and a Prime Minister. A Jarl was a title of power in Sweden before the first Kings appeared in history. During Birger Magnussons period as Jarl, the start of our organized Swedish nation was formed and laws were instated. There are no images of his face, and researchers and historians have always been interested in knowing what Birger really looked like. In the new book "Birger Magnusson - den siste jarlen" we describe how we reconstructed his face. The book can be found in: Västergötlands Museeum, ISBN: 91-973813-6-5

During 2002 his grave in Varnhem was exhumed and examined by osteologic specialists. Unfortunately a CT scan of his skull was not an option at the time. We started out with what was available - a 360 degree SD-videosequence of his skull for a TV program. The approach, not to have the skull itself, a cast or any CT/MR or scanned data available, was new to the scientific community we found, and led us to try some new methods for facial reconstruction from video images in our 3d systems and on PC platforms.
In our "Birger Jarl"-project we developed and investigated several new reconstruction phases - from video to a 3D mesh and then to the complete reconstruction and application of skin data for his face, with the MP-FRM method.

The developed reconstruction methods are now applied to other projects, involving historically interesting persons, whos remains are the only material from which we can reconstruct their face and looks. The reconstructed face was shown in the historical drama documentary series "Arns Rike", broadcast nationwide by TV4 in 2004. The series is available on DVD.

PCG has conducted a research project based on Michaels initial work together with The National Board of Forensic Medicine and CMIV at Linkoping University Hospital.

Source

Another source in Swedish

[DAVIDE]

Nice man. +rep for your contribute

[Recon]

I have always wondered how accurate these reconstructions really are. Lets say you handed over a skull from a person who you had a real photography of - how well would the end result match reality? Somehow I doubt you would be able to recognize this person if you saw him on the street..

Anyhow I always find them quite facinating.. thank you for posting it.

[DAVIDE]

From the bones of a person you have, you can know everything about it.. if he was fat or skinny, tall or short, if he was healthy or not.. and modern computer techniques are able to recostruct a face according to the physioniomic of the same skull in more phases.. starting from the bone, recreating all the layers of muscles and skin till reaching the final result. In my opinion, accuracy is close to 95%

[konny]

I like those resconstructions. Of course, no one can say whether or not they are accurate unless someone builds a timemachine to make a photo of the real guy.


Here is one of Emperor Heinrich IV (1050-1106)


source

[DAVIDE]

Well.. the position and general shape of the main facial features are mostly accurate because they are greatly determined by the skull. So you cannot be mistaken with that

[konny]

Yes, that's true. Of course, the details remain debatable. For example, the reconstruction of Heinrich shows a moustache even though he is usually displayed with a full beard.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

on both pictures he is the guy to the left.

[Harðurāðaz]

Nice find!