Restoring the appearance of a barbarian woman from the Southwestern Crimea. Frontovoye 3 burial ground

Cover Page

Cite item

Full Text

Open Access Open Access
Restricted Access Access granted
Restricted Access Subscription Access

Abstract

In the Roman-era necropolis Frontovoye 3, uncovered in 2018 in the Southwestern Crimea, three burials were discovered in ground crypt 16. One of them (skeleton 1) belonged to a woman 30-39 years old. Due to the good preservation of the skull, it was chosen for craniofacial reconstruction of the buried woman. To reconstruct the appearance, the method of M.M. Gerasimov was used supplemented with new developments, namely the “Appearance Algorithm” programme. A paleoanthropological study was conducted. The complete information about the lifetime dimensional characteristics of the woman’s head was obtained, and the qualitative lifetime individual features of her appearance were determined. The final stage is the creation of a sculptural reconstruction of the woman’s appearance. The paper features a contour reconstruction illustrating the process of restoring the appearance based on the skull.

Full Text

Restricted Access

About the authors

Elizaveta V. Veselovskaya

Russian State University for the Humanities; Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS

Author for correspondence.
Email: labrecon@yandex.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow; Moscow

Maria V. Dobrovolskaya

Institute of Archaeology RAS

Email: mk_pa@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

Anna V. Mastykova

Institute of Archaeology RAS

Email: amastykova@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

Alexey N. Sviridov

Institute of Archaeology RAS

Email: a_sviridov@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

Natalia G. Svirkina

Institute of Archaeology RAS

Email: svirkina.natalia@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

Evgeny S. Bogomolov

Centre for Isotopic Research, Institute of Precambrian Geology and Geochronology RAS; A.P. Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute

Email: e.bogomolov@mail.ru
Russian Federation, Saint-Petersburg; St. Petersburg

References

  1. Alekseev V.P., Debets G.F., 1964. Kraniometriya. Metodika antropologicheskikh issledovaniy [Craniometry. Methodology of anthropological research]. Moscow: Nauka. 128 p.
  2. Balueva T.S., Veselovskaya E.V., 2004. New developments in the restoration of a person’s appearance based on craniological data. Arkheologiya, etnografiya i antropologiya Evrazii [Archaeology, ethnology and anthropology of Eurasia], 1 (17), pp. 143–150. (In Russ.)
  3. Gerasimov M.M., 1955. Vosstanovlenie litsa po cherepu (sovremennyy i iskopaemyy chelovek) [Facial reconstruction based on the skull (modern and fossil man)]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR. 585 p.
  4. Lebedinskaya G.V., 1989. Rekonstruktsiya litsa po cherepu (metodicheskoe rukovodstvo) [Facial reconstruction based on the skull (methodological manual)]. Moscow: Staryy sad. 125 p.
  5. Mir varvarov Tavrii i Khersones, Rim, Vizantiya: katalog vystavki [The world of the Barbarians of Taurica and Chersonesos, Rome and Byzantium: exhibition catalogue]. A.V. Mastykova, L.V. Sedikova, eds. Moscow: Institut arkheologii Rossiyskoy akademii nauk, 2021. 28 p.
  6. Sviridov A.N., Yazikov S.V., 2023. Mogil'nik rimskogo vremeni Frontovoe 3 v Yugo-Zapadnom Krymu [The Roman burial ground of Frontovoye 3 in the Southwestern Crimea], 1. A.V. Mastykova, I.O. Gavritukhin, eds. Moscow: Institut arkheologii Rossiyskoy akademii nauk. 460 p. (Materialy spasatel'nykh arkheologicheskikh issledovaniy, 33).
  7. Veselovskaya E.V., 1997. The unity of patterns of intragroup variability and intergroup differentiation in the thickness of the face soft tissues in modern humans. Edinstvo i mnogoobrazie chelovecheskogo roda [Unity and diversity of the human race], 1. A.A. Zubov, eds. Moscow: Institut etnologii i antropologii Rossiyskoy akademii nauk, pp. 312–335. (In Russ.)
  8. Veselovskaya E.V., 2015. Craniofacial proportions in anthropological reconstruction. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie [Ethnographic review], 2, pp. 83–98. (In Russ.)
  9. Veselovskaya E.V., 2018. “Appearance algorithm” – a comprehensive programme of anthropological reconstruction. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya XXIII: Antropologiya [Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin], 2, pp. 38–54. (In Russ.)
  10. Veselovskaya E.V., Balueva T.S., 2012. New developments in anthropological reconstruction. Vestnik antropologii [Bulletin of Anthropology], 22, pp. 22–42. (In Russ.)
  11. Veselovskaya E.V., Sineva I.M., Borisova E.B., 2019. New data on forensic reconstruction of the middle part of the face. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya XXIII: Antropologiya [Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin], 1, pp. 5–17. (In Russ.).

Supplementary files

Supplementary Files
Action
1. JATS XML
Download
2. Fig. 1. The Frontovoye 3 burial ground. Burial chamber of underground crypt 16. 1 – skeleton 1, a 30–39-year-old woman; 2 – skeleton 2, a 40–49-year-old man; 3 – skeleton 3, a woman over 40 years old

Download (577KB)
Indexing metadata
3. Fig. 2. The Frontovoye 3 burial ground, underground crypt 16. 1 – burial of the 30–39-year-old woman (skeleton 1); 2 – burial fragment: the skull of the 30–39-year-old buried woman (skeleton 1)

Download (906KB)
Indexing metadata
4. Fig. 3. Isotopic ratios of strontium (⁸⁷/⁸⁶Sr) in the enamel of the teeth of individuals from the burials of the Frontovoye 3 burial ground. The column of individual 1 from crypt 16 is highlighted in red

Download (329KB)
Indexing metadata
5. Fig. 4. Contour reconstruction based on the skull of a woman (skeleton 1) from crypt 16 of the Frontovoye 3 burial ground. Created by E.V. Veselovskaya

Download (262KB)
Indexing metadata
6. Fig. 5. A stage of work on restoring the appearance. The masticatory muscles have been reconstructed. First, half of the head is restored, and the thickness of marker cubes on the plasticine-free half of the skull corresponds to the soft facial tissue thickness standards at these points

Download (129KB)
Indexing metadata
7. Fig. 6. The final version of the sculptural reconstruction in profile based on the skull of a woman (skeleton 1) from crypt 16 of the Frontovoye-3 burial ground, plastic. Created by E.V. Veselovskaya. Molding work by R.M. Galeev

Download (204KB)
Indexing metadata
8. Fig. 7. The final version of the full-face sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a woman (skeleton 1) from crypt 16 of the Frontovoye-3 burial ground, plastic. Created by E.V. Veselovskaya. Molding work by R.M. Galeev 

Download (231KB)
Indexing metadata

Copyright (c) 2024 Russian Academy of Sciences