See the Face of a Bronze Age Woman Who Lived in Scotland 4,000 Years Ago

A forensic artist created a facial reconstruction based on the skeletal remains of a woman who died in her late 20s or early 30s

Sarah Kuta
Daily Correspondent
September 28, 2023



In Oscar Nilsson's reconstruction, the Upper Largie Woman looks skeptically at viewers. Oscar Nilsson

In the ’90s, a team excavating a stone quarry in Scotland unearthed the 4,000-year-old skeletal remains of a young woman. She’d been laid to rest in a crouched position in a stone-lined grave. Archaeologists nicknamed her the Upper Largie Woman after the Upper Largie Quarry, where she was found.

Now, an artist has created a reconstruction of what she may have looked like during her lifetime in the early Bronze Age. Her remains have been carefully reburied, but the reconstructed bust is now on display at the Kilmartin Museum in Scotland. The museum reopened earlier this month after being closed for three years during a $8.4 million (£7 million) renovation project, per Sandra Dick of the Herald.

The new reconstruction is the work of Oscar Nilsson, a sculptor and archaeologist in Sweden. In his depiction, the woman has dark wavy hair falling down her back, with a small braid near her face held in place by a string. Her amber eyes peer quizzically at the viewer, with her brow slightly furrowed.

Typically, when Nilsson makes reconstructions, he imagines that museum-goers are looking into the world of a figure from the past—and that the figure can’t perceive their presence. In this case, however, he decided to try flipping that notion on its head: What if Upper Largie Woman was looking out at museum-goers?

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-remarkable-reconstruction-of-a-4000-year-old-bronze-age-woman-180982978/