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The earliest attempts to reconstitute the face from the skull so far recognised appear to arise from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) culture of circa 11,000-8000 BP (Settegast, 1990) centred on Jericho and adjacent regions of Jordan and the West Bank (Fig. 28.1). Archaeologists interpret these objects as having played a role in funerary, ancestor-worship, or similar such rites. These reconstructions were completed by modelling a facial surface in plaster. The eyes and eyelids were often replaced with cowry shells, and the skin complexion and facial features - including moustaches - were painted onto the plaster surface. The reconstructions are described as 'typized and conventional' and are not believed to represent reconstructions of ante-mortem appearance, beyond 'some features determined by the bony framework' (Strouhal, 1973, p.231). Nine millennia were to pass before the first scientific attempts to reconstruct ante-mortem appearance were to arise. |
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