Heads will Roll

They say "variety is the spice of life", and there's variety in my life at the moment.  Not only do I watch for the colors of spring in the birds, and flowers.  I bring some sort of life back to the dead.

I have received an unidentified human skull from Delaware.   Asst. Deputy Medical Examiner Hal Brown and I had a chance to talk a couple weeks ago.  I inquired if he had any skulls laying around that I might reconstruct. It's been a while since I did the reconstruction for the NH State Police, I am eager to create a new face....so to speak.  

This skull arrived full of dirt, vegetative matter, and some red paint on her chin.  I cleaned up the skull, and began the reconstruction.  I guessed at the race of the skull, as there is ambigous info on her background, and I don't know any forensic anthropologists.

My best guess is that she is either Asian, or Southwestern American indian refered to as Mongoloid.  

I know the skull is a female because I can see that the superior aspect/superciliary arch of the orbits are nearly flat.  In males this area protrudes distinctly. Also I looked at the jawline, and mastoid process for remarkable angulation and larger structure.  In addition, the few teeth that are present in the mandible and maxilla, appear quite small.  A male skull of the same age would likely have larger teeth.

The second photo shows the reconstruction at the beginning stages of the actual artistic sculpture.  I had placed the depth tissue markers on the skull to get a general idea of how much "skin" to apply.  As she stands now, this is the "thinnest" representation of the female.  I will begin to add more meat to her face to bring a more realistic feel to it.   Eventually I will add hair, by way of a wig, and perhaps some color to her lips.  

Reconstructions for me are so much fun.  It's like reading a great book that you can't put down. I like to keep working on it straight through from start to finish without stopping.  But of course I do stop, to take Evvy out, and look for more signs of spring.   Then there is the required household chores, and classwork to do.   If I could do reconstructions as my work, it would never be work at all.  I love to see who develops.  Maybe someday we will find out who she is, and what happened to her.