Putting a face to the past

BBC News (Monise Durrani)

What do Johann Sebastian Bach, Saint Nicholas, and the firstborn son of Pharaoh Rameses II all have in common?

The answer? All their faces have been reconstructed using cutting-edge computer technology.

Dr Caroline Wilkinson is a forensic anthropologist, recreating faces from human remains for archaeological and police investigations - bringing the past to life.

Her workshop at the University of Dundee is covered in model heads, created using traditional methods of layering clay on top of a plaster-cast skull. Sharing the space is a large computer system.

"Today we can use information from 3D surface scans or CT scans of the skull, import them, and use 3D modelling or 'virtual sculpture' to create the same muscles that we would create in real clay" said Dr Wilkinson.