Anglo-Saxon Princess Shows Face
State-of-the-art forensic techniques have been used to reconstruct the face of an Anglo-Saxon woman who had similar status to a modern princess.
The woman, nicknamed "Mrs Getty" after the oil mogul for the 500 precious objects buried with her, was one of 219 bodies unearthed in Gloucestershire.
Mrs Getty, who died in the 6th Century, was surrounded by gilt bronze brooches, amber beads, silver and ivory rings.
Anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson made the painstaking facial reconstruction.
Dr Wilkinson, of Manchester University, is an anthropologist who has worked with the police and is a familiar face on the BBC's Ancestors programme.
A reconstruction of the woman in her coffin, complete with clothes, grave goods and hair, will appear at a permanent gallery at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.
Mrs Getty's grave was discovered at an archaeological dig in 1985 at Butler's Field in Lechlade, Gloucestershire. The site is thought to have been used continuously during the Anglo-Saxon period.
Judy Mills of Corinium Museum told The Daily Telegraph newspaper:
"We know that she was between 25 and 30, but we don't know what she died of. She had by far the richest grave with almost 500 precious objects buried with her.
"She also had a wooden coffin with stones packed around it. This meant she held very high status. The big square-headed brooch on her shoulder is a very rare find. It tells us she was important."
Facial reconstruction work is used by forensic scientists to trace missing persons and in surgical reconstruction.
Forensic artists reconstruct the face in clay using clues from the shape of the skull. They are also guided by standard tissue depths around the head which have been calculated from measurements on historic humans.
Some features, such as the shape of the eyes, ears and lips are based on a certain amount of educated guesswork.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3556716.stm
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Originally Posted by Hildegard
I guess she is some kind of Cro-magnid with quite weird nose shape.
Back in the 6th century, who knows what was considered attractive - I doubt that she was though. In the Renaissance, for instance, the Keltic-Nordid type of woman (and man) were the ideal aristocrat and seen as handsome. Marie-Antoinette is an example of her time's most prized type of beauty (blonde too. 
). In any case, royalty/nobility cannot always be associated with beauty. Not nowadays anyway, and I doubt any time in the Dark Ages...
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