Facial Sculpture Based on the Skull of Francisco Pizarro

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FACIAL SCULPTURE BASED ON THE SKULL OF FRANCISCO PIZARRO
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Author~: -
Betty Pat. Gatliff, B. A.
Medical _JJ..J...ustrator
SKOLLpture Lab
1026 Leslie Lane
Norman, Oklahoma 73069
William R. I1iaples, Ph. D.
Forensic Anthropologist
Florida .State IViuseurn
Universit~ of Florida
Gainesvilie, Florida 32611
Nikki J. Graham
Field Investigator
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
901 N. Stonewall
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73117
Manuscript for publication:
ACKNOVVLEDGEMENTS:
Grateful acknowledgement to Dr. Fred Jordan, Chief Medical
Examiner, Oklahoma City for the use of his facilities in creating
and documenting the facial sculpture project. Special thanks to
Drs. Clyde Snow and Richard McWilliams for technical advice, and
to Dr. McWilliams and _Juanita ~·iood for reviewing the manuscript.
'
Nikki J. Grahanr 'is hereby commended for his interest and
extra effort in do~umenting the · project with excellent photographs.
B. P. Gatliff,
w.
R. Maples, N. J. Graham
FACIP.L SCULPrrllRE BASED ON THE SKULL OF FRANCISCO PIZARRO
Facial
sculptu~e,
restoration
I
synonymous with facial reconstruction
I
reproduction, is a method used in forensic anthropology
to aid in identifying skeletal remains.
The artist and anthropologist
collaborate to construct the facial features of the unknown individual
on the basis of the underlying cranial architecture.
In this instance, the skeleton was determined to be Francisco
Pizarro; it was an exercise to suggest his physical appearance
in life.
As far as can be determined, there were no drawings or
paintings of him c!_uring his lifetin:e.
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Dr. William R. Maples rriade a mold of his skull while in Peru and
mailed me a casting in April 1984.
He told me that he was a
Spanish male, 65 to 70 years old.
He suggested that I add a
mustache and short beard (a bit more than a goatee).
The only
other instruction was to enjoy the project - and indeed 1 I did.
With this information, I began.
The mandible was firmly attached
by gluing the condyle of the ramus in the fossa, using clay and cotton
to replace cartilage .
Since his teeth are missing, proper spacing
between mandible and maxilla was estimated by aligning the condyle
and coronoid process parallel with the Frankfort Horizontal. The
skull was then motmted on a stand, maintaining the Frankfort Horizontal _
(Fig.l).
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-2Small cylinders of rubber corresponding to the aver·age thickness
of soft
tis ~me
over certain bony landma rks of the facial skeleton
It is important to note that the tissue
were cut (Fig. 2).
thickness table of measurements includes t h e size of the muscle,
fatty tissue, and skin thickness in one caloulated measurement at
each landrr1ark.
These raa rkers are glued directly on the skull
casting (Fig. 3).
The markers are connected using modeling clay
( plasteline) (Fig. 4)
shape of the face. _
The open spaces are filled, forming the
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All of his features -mouth, eye.s, nose, a r:d ears are based on
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his individual skull.
The locqtion of the features, as well as
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the size and shape of the fe at ures, are important to the individualization of
t~ e
face and must b e care fully rr,e asur ed and located.
Mouth
The front teeth form the shape of tl1e mouth.
teeth were lost post mortem.
Unfortunately, Pizarro's
I ob served the direction of the open
sockets and modeled clay teeth to hold the mouth bar r el in pl Ace.
Three dimensions are required to form the mouth barrel:
(1)
The depth, 9.5:ram (from Fig • .1
, marker nwnber 7, upper lip
mar ,sin).
(2)
The vertical thickness of the lips is measured gumline to
gwrJ. i ne on the teeth.
·;a th
teeth mis;>ing, t h e estimate
we.s l3mra .
(3)
Th e width of t h e mout h is approximately the distance
between two lines ra.dia t ing out from the juncti on of the
canine and first pr emol a r on each side.
lips cover the front six teeth.)
( Basically, t h e
With teeth missing,
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the open sockets were useful.
The mouth barrel is b ent around the
clay teeth and the parting line of the lips
~as
creased horizontally,
along the half\'Lay line and to each edge to ma rk the width.
Chin
and cheek areas are connected to the mouth barrel (Fig. 5).
Lips
are spread, rounded, and striated to give a lifelike appearance.
Eyes
Ordinarily, I use plastic prosthetic eyes to give the sculpture
more realism.
In this case, I carved out the eyes in clay, so that
the finished bust of Pizarro could be cast in a permanent medium
for the museum exhibit.
Nevertheless, the eye is a ball, which is
centered within t h e bony orbit.
The apex of the cornea is approx.
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L>nately tangent to_ a centrall y located line drawn from the superior
and inferior
mar g in~__.o,t--th e
orbit.
Because of his advanced age, I
chose to set the eyeballs a little deeper (approxi mately 4rtll11 ).
The eyelids bend around the eyeballs in both directions, which give
them the p roper three-dimensional quality.
to the bottom of the iris.
lid.
The lo·we r lid comes up
The pupil seems to hang from the upper
There seems to be no relationship
bet~een
orbit and the shape of the ind i vidual's eyelids.
the shape of the
At best,
it is
important to construct the eyes to be anatomic ::;lly correct.
I
prefer to give them a pleA.sant appea rance by closing the lids just
slightly and foTining a little puff under the eye, just a s a person
appears when starting to smile.
corner of the eye and over the
The clay is thin in the inner
nas~=tl
bones.
A f atty pad lies above
and toward the outer side of the eye and smooths into the
b ro~.
-4Nose
The nose is based on two sDnple measurements - the width and the
projection of the nose.
With these, the length of the nose is
established without measuring.
to determine · the nose
Pizarro had a caucasoid skull,
width, tr.e nasal aperture was measured 24mrn
and increased by lOmm for a total width of 34mm.
The projection
(locating the tip of the nose) is three times the length of the
nase.1· . spine.
His nasal spine appeared to be approximately 7rnm;
thus the projection is 2lmm.
The tip of the nose is connected
with the bridge and built out to the width measurement.
There seems
to be a possible relationship between the shape of the bridge (and
also the nasal spine) to the shape of the tip of the nose.
The
wings are rounded and the nares ca r ved out to complete the nos t rils.
Taking t he age of the i ndividual into consideration, t r.e tip of the
nose was drooped sli ghtly .
His cheek muscles were sagged downward
and forw s rd to form a pronounced nasal -l abial
ful~ row
to indicate or
sugg est adv a nced age.
Ears
Unfortunately, there seems to be no clues about the exact shape of
the ears.
A rule of thumb is that the ear and t h e nose are approx -
imately the same length .
Consideri ng his ag e, I chose to make his
ears a little longer than h is nose.
The ears are constructed in
four steps:
(1)
A
11
0 11 shaped bit of clay is formed to be the concha and
spreads at the t ·op for 'che antil1elix .
(2)
The helix is a long thi n wormlike strip, rolled and then
pointed at one end .
curved around and
Starting r;it !.". tl':e pointeci. end, it is
fa st ~n ed
to the
anti~elix
and then the concha.
-5(3)
The lobule is flattened and added to the lower portion
of the ear, under the concha.
To locate the ear, the external auditory meatus should be at the top
of the tragus.
easier to attach
The ear is tipped back at about 15 degrees.
t~e
It is
ear and smooth the clay into the head at this
stage of the construction, than after t h e tragus is attached.
(4)
The tragus is constructed
and smoothed into the cheek
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to complete the ear.
At this point, the facial sculpture
"laS
completed, as far as using
all of the infor-mat;ion that : L could o ase on the skull itself, (~ig • . 6)~
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Norrnall y, in a forensic case, a wig is selected using the hair sample
found at the crime -scene.
No hair was present with Pizarro's ren.aL:s.
I decided it was reasonable to g o to the library to locate pictures
of paintings and lithographs of Pizarro to help me vli th mustache ,
beard and hair style.
I was surprised to find several exrunples -
all of which were done many years after his death by artists who
probably never saw him, personally.
They appeared to be more of
the style of the times in which they --u ere painted or dravm rather
thari a true representation of the subject.
showed him '!lith a full, longer beard.
More than half of them
I liked Dr.
!i~aples
1
sugg esti 8n
of mustache 8 nd srnP,ll be :.., rd, be c au se a full beard ·:1 ould cover too much
of his f a ce and hide his most distinctive features.
He has rather
wide jaws, which is a pronounced discrepancy with the long slender
face in t h e 1760 painting (Fi g . 7) .
beard, at lea st part of
':iithout a doubt, he wore a full
the time (for convenience, if nothing else) .
So, for an academic study of h is face, based on his sktJ.ll, he was given
a smaller b eard.
In each painting or d r mving that I found, he ;·1as
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shown vlith some type of hat or helmet (none of which were very
similar).
They covered so much of his hair (including hairline)
that they "~Nere no help in developine his hair style.
\;Vho knows,
in life his hair may have be e n long enough to cover his ears.
Likewise, a man of his age could be ba lding, . or" at least have
a receeding hairline.
If I 1nay criticize my ovm work, his hair
style may be a little too modern for the sixteenth century.
The one outstanding feature, that all of his paintings and drawings
seem to have in common, is a projecting lower lip which undoubtedly
was caused by a class_III malocclusion .
facial sculpture,
as
It is obvious in the
well .
------In conclusion, I think he looks strong, stern, dignified, and noble.
He proba bly wa s someone I would like to have known, but I don 1 t think
I would care to play poker with him •••• (Fig. 8).
Figure
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Mounted skull ' casting of Francisco Pi zarro.
3.50
3_50
4.75
4.25
5.00
3.25
2.00
• r t.5o
9.50
a · tO.OO
9
10.25
10
6.00
13
4.25
8.25
5.75
6.75
4.25
16
17
18
Figure 2.
4.50
2.75
2.00
10.00
8.25
10.00
10.00 6.25
5.25
4.50
7.25
7.00
5.25
6.75 7.75
17.50 16.00
10.50 9.50
Averag e tissue t h ic kne sses (from Koll:man a nd Buchly, 1898).
Figure 3.
Tissue thickness markers attached to the skull at
designated landmarks.
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Figure 4.
Tissue markers connected with strips of clay.
Figure 5.
Mouth carrel constructed and connect ed with chin and cheek
areas.
.,
Figure 6 .
Facial sculpture b a sed on the skull completed .
D. F'lll\.l~.
Figure 7.
1760 canvas
Pl7.u~RHO fONQIJIS~otl~t
of Francisco Pizarro.
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Figure _S.
Bust of Francisco Pizarro by Betty Pat. Gatliff, 1984.