Facial Reconstruction

This clay head reconstructs the actual facial features of a 7th century Saxon man. It is made from a skull found in a burial site in Brighton. It was commissioned in 2000 with the aid of American Express and was made by Caroline Wilkinson. The layers of this Saxon man's face, from his muscles to his skin, have been rebuilt over a cast of his skull. From the shape of his skull we can tell what his face looked like. A hole in the bone near his mouth shows that he had an abscess above his left front tooth, and would have had a swollen lip. A small divided bone at the base of his nose shows that he had a dent at the tip of his nose.