People like Queen Elizabeth I and George Washington are the people we learn about in school, or even before. Most of the time, we’ve seen a nice picture of the person we’re learning about. We didn’t know that most of these pictures weren’t true. They looked very different from that painting. We know that’s bad.
Artists are paid for their work. If someone liked their painting, they’d get paid. Because of this, the artist would paint their subject in the best way they could, and they might get a big tip. People, especially royals, look very different from how they appear in their implied portraits.
We saw pictures of how some historical people looked and had to show them to other people, so we did. Honestly, we didn’t think these historical figures seemed very different from their painting. You could say it’s like Photoshop from 1100.
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri is the person who wrote the Divine Comedy, a three-part story about a man going through hell, purgatory, and heaven (Paradiso). Dante Alighieri is often shown with solid features, such as a hook nose.
Because the nose is soft and doesn’t last long after we die, we couldn’t be sure that Dante didn’t have a hook nose. This means that the facial reconstruction also has a nose that looks like Dante’s. However, his features were not as sharp as we think they are from the paintings we’ve looked at so far. One big difference is that his brow isn’t as stern as any painting or statue can show.
Mary Queen of Scots
In six days, Mary Queen of Scots became Queen. She went to France for school. The Queen’s job would be hers by the time she was 19. She was known for her beauty and height, which was 5’11.”
When you look at Mary now, you can see that her true face has been rebuilt. She looks a lot different. The years of her troubled life (mostly prison) took a significant toll on her, which is why her restoration shows an older face. That said, she’s still pretty beautiful. The paintings were not too far away, even though they were still getting old.
George Washington
Everyone knows about George Washington and what he did as the United States’ first president. The way he looks in many of the pictures we see of him is typical of the time. For example, look at any picture of Benjamin Franklin. Also, he has reddish cheeks and white hair that has been powdered to make it look white.
A reconstruction of his presence shows that it was like what we read in our textbooks. There are, however, a few different ways. We also saw that his nose was a lot higher than it was in the portraits we saw. They look good together. His jaw is now much smoother, and he has some dimples on it to match those red cheeks.
King Tutankhamun
Most people know about King Tut because of his opulent tomb, which is said to be disturbed and cursed to anyone who finds it (supposedly). All of us saw King Tut’s mask after it was found. The young prince first saw it. It was the only accurate picture we could use for a long time.
Many of these masks didn’t tell the whole story. King Tut was sick. They say that he had many canes, an overbite, and wide hips because he had many clubs. When his mouth opened, he might have had buck teeth. It was also common for people to have flat heads, which was why he had one.
Cleopatra
She called herself Isis all the time, so many people would think she was beautiful. She was also brilliant. She could speak nine languages and was the first pharaoh to make Egyptian the official language, even though she was Greek. She must have been beautiful because she had sex with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony!
Cleopatra had a significant impact on a lot of art, but she wasn’t the beauty people thought she was. That’s not fair. I think it’s clear why so many men fall for her. Because this isn’t the woman we saw for years. Most of her appeal came from her smartness, which makes sense because she was so powerful.
Roman Emperor Nero
They think he started the fire that killed Rome in 64 AD. The bad thing In general, busts are used to make a dictator look more powerful. Nero’s statue isn’t that far off, but he already had a lot of masculine features.
Even though the bust is pretty accurate, there is one thing that we didn’t expect – red hair. That’s fine! Nero’s hair was fiery red (no pun intended). He doesn’t look like many of us thought he did, mainly because modern people in Rome look very different.
Nefertiti
It was said that Nefertiti was Egypt’s most beautiful woman at the time. Even though many people know her name, they may not know that Pharaoh Akhenaten’s wife was named after her (and later mother to King Tut). Every word in her name means “the beautiful one came.” Powerful: The two formed their religion, called Aten’s cult because they were so good together.
Nefertiti is frequently portrayed with a pharaoh’s headdress, having more strength than previous wives. Then in 2018, a team from Bristol University released this bust. They used a mummy they said was Nefertiti’s to make it. Even though her skin color is debated, her bone structure is pretty accurate.
Julius Caesar
A Roman general and politician named Julius Caesar played a big part in the rise of Rome. Many people say he was a slim, thin-haired man who also had an eye for beauty. Most people think of him as an old man who isn’t too weird because he didn’t rule long.
The most recent reconstructions show him looking a little different, but with a lot of the same traits. His head looks very different because he still has the stern brow on his forehead. We have to make it clear. Archaeologist Tom Buijtendorp thought the charge was wrong because it was heavy. Another thing we found out: his eyes are very close together.
William Shakespeare
The face of Shakespeare changes a lot from one artist to the next. This is true even though Shakespeare is more modern than many of the other things on this list. Most portraits show him with dark brown (or sometimes reddish) hair that goes down to his shoulders. His head is bald, but most people think he has long hair. The pictures often show a face that is smoother than a baby’s bottom, which isn’t always the case.
The most recent pictures of Shakespeare’s natural face were taken with his death mask. It shows that he was bald. It looks different on him. In the sun for a long time, it got burned and got wrinkled becau
