Gerasimov M. M. Portrait of Tamerlane
Gerasimov M. M. Portrait of Tamerlane (An experience of sculptural reproduction on a craniological basis) // Brief communications of the Institute of the History of Material Culture. 1947. Issue. XVII. pp. 14-21.
The study of the physical type of people of the distant past is undoubtedly one of the elements of historical research. Anthropological study of people whose genealogy is known helps to understand the nature of the transmission of a number of traits by inheritance, and from this side it will be of interest not to historians, but to biologists. A new technique for creating a sculptural portrait of a historical person on a craniological basis not only unites the common interests of biological and historical science, but also makes this silent bone material accessible to everyone, and not just a specialist anthropologist. 1
In May - June 1941, excavations were carried out in the Gur-Emir mausoleum. tomb of the Timurid dynasty. The expedition uncovered five burials: Timur, his sons Shahrukh and Miranshah, his grandsons Ulugbek and Muhammad Sultan. The purpose of this article is to describe the process of restoring the documentary portrait of Timur.
Timur's grave occupied a central position in the basement of the mausoleum; her tombstone consists of a very massive, roughly hewn slab of gray limestone, on top of which a thin slab of onyx was attached to ganch mortar, covered with the finest carved pattern of a dedicatory inscription. A thick layer of ganch was discovered under the slab, overlying massive transverse limestone blocks that served as the roof of the burial chamber. The burial chamber, made of massive limestone blocks, well fitted together, was a rectangle three meters by meter, with a depth of about a meter. Inside this chamber there was a wooden coffin of a completely identical shape to those now in use. On top of the coffin there are remains of what was once
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1 Twenty years ago, when I began my work on reconstructions, I did not imagine the possibility of portrait reconstruction of a face based on the skull. My task at that time was limited to solving an ethnic portrait. Only later, when conducting control experiments, did I become convinced of the possibility of posing and solving the problem of portrait reconstruction of a face from a skull.
In 1940, I managed to carry out a series of well-organized control experiments, carried out with the help of prof. A.D. Grigoriev in the Lefortovo morgue. Finally, at the beginning of 1941, two forensic cases, one after another, eloquently documented the authenticity of the portrait restoration. This gave me the opportunity to raise the question of reproducing sculptural portraits of historical figures. This is how documentary portraits of Yaroslav the Wise, Andrei Bogolyubsky and others were created (KSIIMK, 1940, issue VII, p. 72 and KSIIMK, 1945, issue XI, page 88).
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covering it was a brocade blanket of dark blue, almost black color, with sayings of the Koran woven with silver thread. The juniper coffin was knocked together with massive, quadrangular in cross-section, iron nails with large heads. All the nails were completely corroded. When opening the coffin, a very sharp, intoxicating smell of camphor and some other, probably preservative substances was felt.
A skeleton was found in the coffin, lying on its back, with outstretched arms clasped in the hands, outstretched legs and head lying on the right cheek, face turned towards Mecca. The bones were covered here and there with small scraps of fabric. Remains of mummified muscles and skin were found near the head, neck, and inner thighs. The hands and small bones of the feet were mixed and tangled. All the bones were covered with thin, exhausted loess; here and there fine-needle druses of gypsum that had fallen out of the aqueous solution were seen on the bones. The skull, removed with the utmost care, was dried in the shade in the open air for three hours, after which it was possible to carry out its preliminary conservation, i.e., fixing it by impregnation with wax. Before impregnation, the remaining hair of the head, eyebrows, mustache and beard were removed from the skull.
One of the main tasks of the expedition was to document the authenticity of Timur's burial. The dedicatory inscription on the tombstone by itself did not resolve this issue. Only a study of the skeleton could provide a definitive answer.
The peoples of the East have preserved to this day hundreds of legendary tales about the greatest conqueror of the 15th century. Not only Central Asia, but also distant China and India trembled before the name of the Iron Lame, and the fame of his power and fabulous wealth reached Europe. Biographers spared no expense in describing his great campaigns, but, unfortunately, they left very little information about his appearance; the information is contradictory and unclear.
According to ibn Arab Shah, Timur, son of Targai, from the Barlas clan (a Turkified Mongol clan) was born in 1334 near the city of Kesh, in the village of Hadji-Ilgar. Written sources indicate that in 1362, in a battle with the Turkmens near Seistan, Timur was wounded by arrows; As a result, he was left with a limp on his right leg and with a withered right arm for the rest of his life. In addition, it was probably here, according to Clavijo, that Timur lost two fingers of his right hand. According to contemporaries, Timur had a red beard, was tall and extremely strong.
At the age of 72, Timur again organizes a campaign against China and dies at the very beginning of this campaign. He died on February 18, 1405.
Time has not preserved a single plausible image of Timur. Numerous miniatures, mostly of Iranian and Indian origin, extremely dissimilar to each other and, moreover, dating from a much later time, cannot be accepted as reliable. Little can be gleaned from written sources. However, the evidence that Timur comes from a Turkified Mongol family is a document that gives the right to categorically refuse to consider Iranian and Indian miniatures that endow Timur with typical features of an Indo-European.
The discovered skeleton belongs to a strong man, relatively tall for a Mongolian (about 170 cm). Even at the time of the autopsy, attention was drawn to a number of pathological features of the skeleton. Upon closer examination, it turned out that the bones of the right arm were indeed fused at the elbow joint in a slightly bent position. All three bones
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formed, as it were, one completely indivisible block. The process of fusion has gone so far that the resulting bone callus has completely blocked the articular surfaces, forming a powerful influx over them. This defect of the arm at the elbow was compensated by a strong growth of the upper epiphysis of the humerus and corresponding changes in the scapula. Thus, one should think that, despite such a deep-seated painful process, Timur did not lose the mobility of this arm in the shoulder joint. The structure of the hand is also proof that the hand not only functioned, but was also extremely strong, which was not hampered by the index finger disfigured by the wound.
The lost ability of the right arm to bend at the elbow apparently gave rise to the legend of Timur’s withered arm. Despite careful research by pathologists and clinical surgeons, it was not possible to definitively establish a diagnosis of the disease that caused such dramatic changes in the elbow joint. According to the testimony of all specialists, the process of ankylosis went so far that Timur did not experience any painful sensations towards the end of his life. Most doctors are inclined to think that this formation is associated with the process of tuberculosis. Without at all considering myself the right to refute the conclusions of experts, I must, however, note that the chronicle evidence of Timur being wounded by arrows is perfectly illustrated by the preserved mark on the lower epiphysis of the humerus on its inner side. Here a small splinter of bone is clearly visible, fastened with adhesions, and heavily veiled by the further process of ankylosis. The index finger was mutilated by the wound. The upper epiphysis of the first phalanx was mostly knocked down and displaced. The bone fused, but incorrectly. The resulting additional articular surfaces in the lower epiphysis of the second phalanx did not fully compensate for the resulting disruption of this wound. But despite the fact that the finger was crooked, it did not lose its mobility.
The data presented, if not completely, then largely confirm Clavijo’s testimony about Timur’s wounds. Timur's lameness was similarly documented. The right thigh, as well as the lower leg, are completely pathological. The kneecap had fused with the epiphysis of the femur, and in such a position that the leg could not be straightened. Subsequently, the additional articulating areas that formed on the patella and on the front side of the epiphysis of the tibia did not compensate for the defectiveness of the knee. When comparing the right and left legs, it is discovered that the bones differ little in their length, and the shortening of the right leg should be attributed entirely to the bending of the knee joint. The thigh of the left healthy leg is massive and has a strong relief, while the right bone is much thinner and weakened. The same should be noted when comparing the tibias. Poor mobility in the right knee and an incomplete process of ankylosis indicate that Timur’s leg, most likely affected by tuberculosis, caused him great physical suffering. When examining the bones of the feet, attention is drawn to a number of minor pathological phenomena in the structure of the heel bone of the right leg and the fusion of the second metatarsal with the wedge-shaped bone of the same leg. The remaining bones of the feet do not show clear traces of pathological changes. The pelvic bones, vertebrae, ribs bear traces of a number of large or minor compensatory phenomena that somehow alleviated Timur’s severe lameness. When examining these bones, it becomes obvious that Timur’s entire torso was distorted, so that the left shoulder was significantly higher than the right, but this, however, did not affect the proud carriage of his head (Fig. 8).
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All of the listed pathological phenomena have the nature of long-standing formations, but, of course, can be attributed to adulthood, which somewhat does not correspond to the data of written sources, which indicated that Timur’s lameness was the result of severe bruises in his youth. But despite the old age of the pathological processes that so greatly changed the skeletal basis of Timur, it should be noted that, despite his 72-year-old age, there are almost no actual senile phenomena associated with the decrepitude of the body. The relatively insignificant formation of osteophytes in relation to age emphasizes the tonality of the entire skeleton. Timur loved horse riding and would not get out of the saddle for several days. Isn’t this what should explain the degree of bending of the sore leg? It is very likely that on horseback Timur felt less of his physical limitations, maintaining his majestic posture.
The massiveness of healthy bones, their highly developed relief and density, the width of the shoulders, the volume of the chest and relatively high stature - all this gives the right to think that Timur had an extremely strong build. His strong athletic muscles were most likely distinguished by a certain dryness of form, and this is natural: life on military campaigns, with their difficulties and hardships, almost constant stay in the saddle could hardly contribute to obesity.
In terms of the author’s work on the portrait reconstruction of Timur, the most important document is his original skull. Naturally, in this regard, it deserves the most complete description. However, it is a mistake to assume that this article will provide a craniological analysis of this skull. In this work, a description of Timur’s skull will be given from the point of view of restoring the external appearance, i.e., more attention will be paid not to absolute dimensions, but to descriptive features. Before moving on to the description of the shape of the skull, I consider it necessary to point out that most of the left parietal bone was destroyed by gypsum salts, but this, however, did not prevent a complete understanding of the shape of the cranial vault.
Timur's skull in horizontal projection occupies an intermediate position between the spheroidal and sphenoidal forms. Some vagueness of the pattern is explained by significant natural deformation associated with uneven fusion of the coronal suture. This is a typical form of the so-called left-sided plagycephaly, which results in the growth of the skull to the right side. The cranial vault is regularly rounded, with a non-protruding occiput, but a slightly depressed occipital shaft. The forehead is steep, with well-defined frontal tubercles. The moderately developed brow ridges barely extend beyond the middle of the orbit. It is characteristic that they do not lie parallel to the edge of the orbit, but wedge out with their outer edges upward towards the frontal tubercles. The face has a regular ovoid shape, with slightly protruding cheekbones. The orbits are large, round, with strongly protruding, relatively thin, but blunted edges. The zygomatic process of the upper jaw, with the adjacent anterior part of the zygomatic bone, form the lower edge of the orbit, strongly projected forward.
Despite the relatively weak development of the brow, the glabella itself protrudes strongly forward. The root of the nose is high, its dorsum is slightly wavy, and the arch is rounded and blunt. Nasal bones with a clear interception in their middle part. The wide pear-shaped opening is heart-shaped. The subnasal spine is poorly developed and slightly elevated. The sharp subnasal edge of the pyriform opening is raised in the same way. The ends of the nasal bones, as well as the entire edge of the pear-shaped opening, are thinned, slightly blunted and slightly turned inward. The upper jaw is very wide, and the lower jaw is also wide.
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jaw. Its ascending branch is strong. The chin is steep, protruding, with highly developed relief.
The early loss of the upper incisors and the resulting atrophy of the alveolar sockets led to the fact that the slightly protruding nasal spine formed a ridge along the line of the intermaxillary suture. Strongly swollen, protruding alveolar parts of the canines indicate significant prognathism of the incisors in youth. Despite the weakly expressed maxillary notch (canine fossa), due to the sharp relief of the cheekbones in their frontal part, the impression of a less flat face is created than is actually the case.
The teeth are heavily worn, with traces of obvious caries. Many teeth are lost long before death.
You don’t have to be astute to see typical Mongoloid features in Timur’s skull: a bright bract, obviously a flattened face, its significant width and height. All this is best connected with written documents testifying to the origin of Timur from the Barlas family.
Despite Timur's old age (70-72), his skull, as well as his skeleton, do not have pronounced, strictly senile features. On the contrary, the delayed formation of the saddle of the skull, slight obliteration of the sutures, the presence of most of the teeth, a clear relief of the bones, the almost absence of osteophytes - all this rather suggests that the skull and skeleton belonged to a person full of strength and health, whose biological age did not exceed 50 years. The relief of the back of the head, strong, large cervical vertebrae, with a specific proud position of the head, large collarbones and shoulder blades indicate the power of the cervical and thoracic muscles. All this gave the right, when choosing a standard for the thickness of soft integuments, to take the largest one, adjusted for reinforcement in places of the most strongly developed bone relief.
The density of the bone structure and the clarity of the ridges of the facial skeleton indicate a relatively weak development of the subcutaneous fat layer. Timur's large face was strong, muscular, but not fat. A steep, wide forehead with well-defined tubercles determines by its configuration the direction of a number of deep horizontal wrinkles. The strong protrusion of the glabella, reinforced by the convexities of short, wedging upward eyebrows, forms a tuberous expansion above the nasofrontal suture, which determines the nature of the vertical folds between the eyebrows. The eyebrow serves as a direct bed for short, but thick, tufted Mongolian eyebrows, the hair of which has been preserved.
The thinned edges of the orbits, their size, roundness, strong protrusion of the lower edge of the orbit and the wide interorbital distance determine the Mongoloid structure of the eyes, emphasized by their slightly beveled section. However, the significant protrusion of the root of the nose and the relief of the middle part of the eyebrow indicate that the Mongolian eyelid fold itself is relatively weakly expressed. The sharply pronounced microrelief of the frontal part of the zygomatic, their massiveness, as well as the enhanced relief of the ascending branch of the lower jaw indicate the development of the masticatory muscles and some of their dryness. The wide pear-shaped opening and the roundness of the arch of the nasal bones give the idea of a somewhat flattened nose, the nostrils of which, in accordance with the structure of the lower part of the pyriform opening, slightly extend beyond its limits and are clearly modeled. The vagueness of the philtrum and some retraction of the middle part of the upper lip are directly related to the deformation of the anterior part of the upper jaw, which arose due to the loss of the incisors. Width of the palatal part, strong
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The relief of the alveolar edge, the size of the teeth and their bite indicate that Timur’s mouth was wide, with thick, but strong, energetically defined lips. A certain sensuality in the mouth design is determined by a significant protrusion of the lower lip, an emphasized, sharply defined, energetic chin. The angle of the ascending ramus of the mandible determines the erect position of the small, strong, typically Mongoloid ears. The configuration of the outer part of the zygomatic, the clear contours of the auditory canal, the slight relief of the small mastoid processes, with their calm, somewhat rounded shapes and apexes facing inward - all this convinces that the concha of the ear was pressed tightly to the head. The size of the ear, according to the size of the nose, is small. The clearly defined nostrils with their pattern give the right to assume the nature of the relief of the auricle, with a clearly defined curl and a well-modeled, small lobe. All this was confirmed by the late discovery of a fragment of a preserved ear among the mummified remains of muscle tissue.
These descriptive data exhaust our observations, but they are enough to, using the skull, reproduce the features of the great conqueror of Central Asia. This documentary reproduction of the head is achieved by using a specific and more than once tested technique (Fig. 9).
First of all, the main chewing muscles and ridges are restored on the skull, the attachments of which are clearly visible. Then, according to the structure of the base of the skull and the shape of the cervical vertebrae, the position of the head is determined, according to which a wooden frame is made, and the cervical muscles are reproduced on it, taking into account the specific features of the structure of Timur’s neck and shoulders.
To achieve complete objectivity in constructing the face, the thickness of the soft integument was applied mechanically, for which, in accordance with the accepted standard of thick marks, elevation marks were applied to the authentic skull, which were sculpted in the form of truncated pyramids of dense wax. The height of each such pyramid determined the thickness of the soft covers at a given point. According to the accepted scale of the thickness of the soft coverings of Timur’s head, the following elevation marks were placed on his skull (only the main ones are given, in mm):
1. Coronal suture at the intersection of the segitals - 6
2. Coronal suture on Linea temporalis inferior - 7
3. Middle of the frontal bone - 6
4. Middle of the eyebrow - 11
5. Nasofrontal suture - 10
6. The middle of the upper edge of the orbit is 6
7. Outer edge of the orbit - 7
8. Middle of the nasal bones - 6
9. End of nasal bones - 3
10. The lower edge of the orbit in the middle — 9
11. Middle of the cheek - 15
12. Directly on the side of the subnasal spine - 1
13. Middle of the zygomatic -
14. The front edge of the zygomatic bone — 1
15. In front of the ear on the zygomatic — 6
16. Lower edge of the upper jaw - 14
17. Lower lip thickness - 15
18. Middle of the lower jaw along the groove - 11
19. Maximum chin protrusion - 9
20. Lombodal suture along the segital - 9
21. Against Protuberantia occipitalis externa - 13
These elevation marks were combined into horizontal and vertical profiles by thin ridges of dense wax.
A profile was sculpted along the segital section of the skull. Restoring this profile along the entire vault of the head is not particularly difficult, but creating the profile of the nose and mouth is one of the most difficult and important tasks of the entire reconstruction.
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I have developed a technique for constructing a soft nose profile. Using it to reproduce Timur’s head, I sculpted a crest that was obviously larger than the profile of the nose. Then I drew a line along this ridge, which is tangent to the last third of the nasal bones. Next, a second line was marked, representing a direct continuation of the main direction of the subnasal spine. The apex of the angle formed by these two conditional straight lines, as always, corresponded to the apex of the soft nose. The profile of the dorsum of the nose in its upper part is subordinate to the configuration of the profile of the nasal bones, and in the lower part it is constructed based on taking into account the relief of the side walls of the pyriform opening. In this case, the wide, heart-shaped, pear-shaped opening, with slight undulation on the sides, corresponded to the slight undulation of the back of the soft nose. The wide base of the pear-shaped opening with soft outlines indicated a soft, somewhat flattened profile of the end of the nose. The general flatness of the nose, associated with a wide bell of the pear-shaped opening, with edges blunted at the bottom, eloquently showed that the wings of Timur’s nose were wide, thick, but clearly modeled.
Restoring the mouth profile is much easier. The characteristic bite and the absence of upper incisors ensured ease of constructing the mouth profile. The profile of the chin is reproduced in complete subordination to the bone relief of the lower jaw.
After all the ridges had been reproduced, the voids formed between them were filled with wax. In this way, the objectivity of the facial construction was ensured.
After modeling the head, the eyeballs were inserted into the orbits and the eyelids were modeled based on the shape of the edge of the eye sockets. For the purpose of constant control, first one half of the face was sculpted, then the other.
Throughout the entire work on creating Timur’s portrait, all the main moments were photographed, and upon completion of modeling one half of the face, a cast was made documenting this moment of the work process. The second casting was made after the modeling of the entire head was completed.
Under normal conditions, the documentary work ends at this stage. Further design of the costume and hairstyle is usually an area of greater or lesser guesswork.
The very special conditions of preservation of Timur’s ashes made it possible to document his hairstyle. Chronicle sources indicate that Timur died at the end of winter (February 18), during a military campaign. This probably explains the fact that, contrary to the generally accepted custom of shaving his head, Timur had relatively long hair at the time of his death. At the temples and behind the ears they reached 3 cm, while at the top of the head they were no longer than 1.5 cm. Timur’s hair is thick, straight, gray-red in color, with a predominance of dark chestnut or red. The eyebrow hair was less well preserved, but still, from these remains it was not difficult to imagine and reproduce the general shape of the eyebrow. Well-preserved individual hairs reached from 12 to 14 mm in length, and they were strongly curled and thin. Their color is dark chestnut. The mustache itself was not preserved, but on the right side of the skull, on the alveolar part of it, a stain of decay was discovered, representing the remains of a mustache. This spot with small fragments of hair clearly conveyed the entire external shape of the mustache. A careful analysis of this spot made it possible to accurately reproduce not only the general shape of the mustache, but also to identify one
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a characteristic feature of Timur's mustache. It turns out that Timur wore a long mustache, and not trimmed above the lip, as was customary by devout followers of Sharia. As we found out, there was a rule that allowed the upper military class to wear a mustache without cutting it above the lip, and Timur, according to this rule, did not cut his mustache, and it hung freely above the lip.
On the lower jaw, on its left side, beard hairs stuck to it have been preserved. These strands of hair were completely in situ, so that the beginning of the beard was clearly visible. The lower lip to the mental groove and the upper part of the cheek were completely free from hair. Timur's small thick beard was wedge-shaped. Her hair is coarse, almost straight, thick, bright brown (red) in color, with significant gray streaks. Even a preliminary examination of the beard’s hair under a binocular convinces us that this reddish-red color is its natural color, and not dyed with henna, as historians described. Many hairs are only partially bleached, while some are completely white and gray.
All this made it possible to restore Timur’s hairstyle with sufficient reliability. The costume and headdress were created based on an analysis of miniatures and authentic items from the Timurid dynasty.
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Illustrations for the article
Rice. 8. Restoration of Timur's head
1 - Timur’s skull; 2-3 — restoration of Timur’s head; 4 – Timur
Rice. 9. Restored head of Timur