I recently caught a documentary on the History Channel called "Death Masks." It was absolutely fascinating, because you got to see extremely accurate representations of the faces of legendary people-- based on plaster casts taken of their faces, either in life or in death.
Even though photography wasn't invented until the 1830's, casting facial masks is a practice that has been around since ancient times.
And when it comes to seeing an accurate representation of someone's actual face, masks are even better than photos. Masks are three-dimensional, and capture each detail: lines, scars, and even pores.
In the program, scientists laser scanned the plaster face masks of these historical people onto computers, creating a 3D image of the masks. They added color (which may not be wholly accurate) but when you see lifelike images of ancient emperors and former presidents blinking, you can't help but be awed.
The first person whose face was featured on the show was Abraham Lincoln. He had actually two masks of his face made while he was alive-- one in 1860, right after he won the Republican presidential nomination, and the other in 1865, soon before he was killed.
The two masks revealed how much more aged and gaunt Lincoln's face had become in just those five years, which photos don't fully capture. This provokes the question: was it simply the accumulated toll of being president during the Civil War, in addition to his son Willie's death and his wife's subsequent mental breakdown-- or was he sick? Some suspect he had a "wasting disease", maybe Marfan Syndrome, and that John Wilkes Booth could have therefore saved himself the trouble of shooting him.
Lincoln's face in 1865
The second mask to be studied was that of George Washington. This was even more fascinating, since we have no photographs of him. We only have paintings depicting him and the one dollar bill, and we certainly can't trust those to be accurate.
Washington's mask was made in 1785, not long before he became our first president. He was a handsome man, and actually looks pretty much the way I pictured him. In his face I saw determination and strength of character. I imagine that, along with his 6'3" frame (extremely tall for the 18th century), he must have been quite impressive-looking and charismatic-- never mind the fact that he only had a couple of his own teeth left by that time, and had to wear very primitive dentures made of ivory and human teeth.
The next person was Julius Caesar. The problem with this one was that they weren't sure that the mask they were using was an actual mask of his face or not.
Napoleon Bonaparte's had a similar issue-- they had two possible masks ("will the real Napoleon please stand up?").
Then they showed William Shakespeare's, which was neat. He actually looked pretty much the way he did in his most famous portrait. There seemed to be a growth or deformity over the left eye, leading scientists to suspect that the Bard may have died from a tumor.
Death mask of Shakespeare, 1616
Last was the featured the death mask of American gangster/bank robber John Dillinger, which was taken the day after he was shot by FBI agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater. There had been rumors that the man who had been killed that night was not Dillinger, but a look-alike. Scientists, after lining up some of his live photos with the mask, proved once and for all that the dead man's face was Dillinger's. The unusual heat, the bullet holes in the face, the darkening of the eyes, and the plastic surgery Dillinger had recently undergone had caused the doubt as to the body's identity.
Aside from finding this fascinating because I'm so interested in historical figures and love that we can see what they actually looked like, it also made me realize how much of our character is revealed in our faces. Looking at these casts, you get a sense of the personalities of these people.
Science is just so cool.
Thursday, November 19, 2009 |