13 February 2024 — 19 May 2024
Расположение:
eng-name / eng-name / eng-name
Location:
museum exhibition complex / 3rd floor / exhibition hall No. 7
What did
people look like hundreds and thousands of years ago, long before the invention
of photography? The Russian anthropologist and anatomist G.V. Lebedinskaya was
able to “revive” the faces of our ancestors and famous historical figures not
with the help of magic, but thanks to the world-famous method of reconstructing
a face from a skull. The exhibition “RE-construction” is dedicated to the life
of Galina Vladimirovna Lebedinskaya and the unique work of anthropologists,
thanks to whom we can come face to face with our history.
In the
1950s, Russian anthropologist Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerasimov (1907-1970)
developed a unique method of reconstructing a face from a skull and recreated
more than 200 sculptural portraits of people of the past. Thanks to him, we
know what Prince Yaroslav the Wise, Tsar Ivan the Terrible and the legendary
conqueror Tamerlane looked like. Same with the nameless, but no less important
in human history, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Galina Vyacheslavovna
Lebedinskaya (1924-2011), a talented student and follower of Gerasimov,
continued the work of her teacher. Under her sensitive hands people from
different eras came to life - from Homo erectus to the medieval inhabitants of
Moscow.
Today, the
Laboratory’s specialists not only continue the work of their teachers – M.M. Gerasimov
and G.V. Lebedinskaya, but also with the help of the latest technologies they
are improving the methods of plastic and anthropological reconstruction. How
can you see facial features in impersonal bones - European or Asian, young or
old, arrogant or friendly, rude or refined? At the exhibition stage by stage viewers
will be able to learn how the skull is “overgrown” with muscles and skin, how
the nose and eyes, chin and ears appear. How the face changes, complemented by
hairstyle, jewelry, clothes.
During her
long creative life Galina Vyacheslavovna created more than 200 sculptural and
graphic reconstructions of people. Dozens of reconstructions presented at the
exhibition will allow you to appreciate the diversity of images. Among them are
Heidelberg Man, who lived about 200 thousand years ago, and the first
Cro-Magnon man found; warlike Polovtsian and Moscow archer; outstanding
scientists Stepan Krasheninnikov and Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay; Emperor Nicholas
II and members of his family; nameless soldiers who died in 1941-1944 on the
Volkhov Front.
The
exhibition is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Galina Vladimirovna
Lebedinskaya and is organized by the State Darwin Museum together with the
Laboratory of Plastic Reconstruction of the Institute of Ethnology and
Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the famous Russian forensic
expert, chief specialist of the Moscow Forensic Medical Bureau S.A. Nikitin.
G.V.
Lebedinskaya at work
E.V.
Veselovskaya and O.M. Grigorieva in the process of reconstruction N.N.
Miklouho-Maclay
S.A.
Nikitin with reconstructions of Nicholas II, family members and associates
Stages of
graphic facial reconstruction. Author M.M. Gerasimov
Reconstructions of the royal family. Author S.A. Nikitin
Учреждение, подведомственное
