Jesus Christ's 'face' recreated using Semite skulls by Richard Neave

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• published: 15 Dec 2015
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Is this the REAL face of Jesus? Forensic experts use ancient Semite skulls to reveal what Christ may have looked like Retired medical artist recreated the face of a man, living at the same time and place as Jesus, using forensic techniques and passages from the Bible Portrait shows the Son of God with a wide face, hazel eyes and a beard He is also depicted as having short curly hair and a tanned complexion The 'reconstruction' was based on three Semite skulls found in Israel ============================= Cheap Hotel Rooms‏ Search & Save On Cheap Hotel Rooms. Save Up to 80%! Cheap Hotel Rooms. https://goo.gl/9AI2bH ========================== He may be shown as a Caucasian man with long, flowing light brown hair in many religious artworks, but Jesus would have likely had a darker complexion and short, dark, curly hair, a forensic expert claims. Retired medical artist Richard Neave has recreated the face of 'Jesus' by studying Semite skulls using modern-day forensic techniques. His portrait shows the Son of God may have had a wide face, dark eyes, a bushy beard and short curly hair, as well as a tanned complexion. These features would likely have been typical of Middle Eastern Jews in the Galilee area of northern Israel. Dr Neave stressed the portrait is that of an adult man living at the same time and place as Jesus, but some experts say his depiction is still likely far more accurate than paintings by the great masters. Without a skeleton or remains that can be categorically confirmed as Jesus, and a lack of physical descriptions in the New Testament, many previous images have been based either on the society in which the painter or sculptor lived, or hearsay. With this in mind, Dr Neave, formerly from the University of Manchester, used a technique called forensic anthropology as well as fragments of information from the Bible, to create the portrait that may resemble the religious figure, Popular Mechanics reported. The technique uses cultural and archaeological data, as well as techniques similar to those used to solve crimes to study different groups of people. The team hypothesised Jesus would have had facial features typical of Galilean Semites of his era, based on a description of events in the Garden of Gethsemane, written in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew. He wrote that Jesus closely resembled his disciples. Dr Neave and his team X-rayed three Semite skulls from the time, previously found by Israeli archaeologists. WHY IS JESUS DEPICTED IN DIFFERENT WAYS? No physical description of Jesus is found in the Bible But he's typically depicted as Caucasian in Western works of art, but has also been painted to look as if he was Latino or an Aboriginal. It's thought this is so people in different parts of the world can more easily relate to the Biblical figure. The earliest depictions shown him as a typical Roman man, with short hair and no beard, wearing a tunic. It's thought that it's not until 400AD that Jesus appears with a beard. This is perhaps to show he was a wise teacher, because philosophers at the time were typically depicted with facial hair. The conventional image of a fully bearded Jesus with long hair did not become established until the 6th century in Eastern Christianity, and much later in the West Medieval art in Europe typically showed him with brown hair and pale skin. This image was strengthened during the Italian Renaissance, with famous paintings such as The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci showing Christ. Modern depictions of Jesus in films tend to uphold the long-haired, bearded stereotype, while some abstract works show him as a spirit or light. They used computerised tomography to create ‘slices’ of the skulls to uncover details that make up their structure. They then used specialist programs to calculate important measurements and work out how the muscles and skin should look.