M[ikhail] M[ikhailovich] Gerasimov "Fundamentals of Craniofacial Reconstruction". Sovetskaya nauka, Moscow: 1949 // 190 p.

M[ikhail] M[ikhailovich] Gerasimov "Basic reconstruction of faces by skull". Sovetskaya nauka, Moscow: 1949 // 190 p.
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M[ikhail] M[ikhailovich] Gerasimov "Fundamentals of Craniofacial Reconstruction". Sovetskaya nauka, Moscow: 1949 // 190 p.

Probably the world's most famous book on reconstructing facial features on the skull; The first large-scale work of the world-famous Soviet anthropologist and archaeologist Mikhail Gerasimov (1907-1970) summarizes his efforts to create, for the first time in the world, a method for reconstructing the face on the skull (called the "Gerasimov method" for short), without the availability of any other data – descriptions, photos, etc.; The body of the book and the cover are in excellent condition.

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the first attempts to restore facial features on the skull began. These attempts did not lead to the creation of lean technology to enable such restoration, but a considerable amount of empirical material on facial soft tissue thickness was accumulated, and these data were tabulated in long and detailed tables. "Gerasimov's method" is the first comprehensive approach to such restoration, in which the stages of restoration follow in a strictly defined order and include an exact number of manipulations, which are based on soft tissue thickness tables with data collected by Gerasimov himself. Moreover, each of these stages completely excludes, unlike other similar and later methods, the use of any additional materials. That is why often in summarizing works you can find the statement that "Gerasimov's method" is suitable not only for historical reenactments.

The book presented here is proof of the failure of these claims. It has enough examples of reconstructions for forensic purposes. Particularly striking are the examples where, after the reconstruction of the skull, photographs have been found that show a striking resemblance to the reconstruction. So it should have become clear that the "Gerasimov method" is equally applicable to both historical and forensic reconstructions.

Prof. Mihail Gerasimov has never dealt with Bulgarian material for his reconstructions. But all three reconstructions of Tsar Samuel's skull are the work of his followers, who work precisely according to the "Gerasimov method". We recently promised to presentavim here are the results so far of the work of three students and followers of Prof. Gerasimov to create a clear idea of ​​the appearance of this Bulgarian king.

There are all kinds of proposals floating around the web for "portraits" of King Samuel, the work of sufficiently ignorant and uneducated people - or those who do so for selfish reasons. It will not be possible for us to refute them now. However, we will definitely agree with the statement of the great Bulgarian anthropologist Prof. Petar Boev{1}, made long enough ago, that no portrait images of the king have been found to this day. Perhaps another time we will be able to deal more closely with these "portraits"; their history is curious.

The first study of the bones, including the skull of King Samuel, after its discovery in 1965, was made by the Greek anthropologist-nationalist Aris Poulianos{2}, who just recently turned 99 years old. Poulianos lived in the Soviet Union from 1952 to 1965 with small interruptions at the beginning of the time period, defended his PhD thesis in 1961 and worked in the laboratory of Prof. Gerasimov until his return to Greece in 1965. His first professional assignment there is the study of the bones from grave 3 in the church of St. Achilles" in the Little Prespa Lake, discovered in the same year by Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos (1927-2019). Based on the research of Poulianos, Moutsopoulos made drawings{3}with a two-dimensional reconstruction of the facial features of King Samuel. In his article in Etude balkanique{4} Nikolaos Moutsopoulos seems to make a mistake in the text under fig. 7, claiming that the reconstruction of King Samuil's skull was based on the "Method of Venedikov". There is no such anthropologist and no such method, the professor undoubtedly meant the "Gerasimov method", referring to the education and work of Aris Poulianos in the Soviet Union, where he worked for four years under the guidance of Prof. Mikhail Gerasimov.

At the beginning of the 90s of the last century, Galina Vyacheslavovna Lebedinska (3-1924) made a three-dimensional reconstruction based on an accurate cast of the skull from grave 2011, who, after the death of Prof. Mikhail Gerasimov, led the Plastic Reconstruction Laboratory at the Institute of Ethnography at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (today the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology at the Russian Academy of Sciences). Her reconstruction stands out sharply from the other two. Lebedinska presents Tsar Samuil around 50 years old, unlike the rest of the reenactments, which prefer to show the Tsar shortly before his death. King Samuil, in Lebedinska's view, is a man in the prime of his life, with a powerful, muscular face, despite the king's short stature, while other reenactments show him considerably more graceful. The king's hairstyle also causes controversy, which has nothing to do with the bone material and the method of restoration, and is entirely according to the anthropologist's view, according to his historical experience. This hairstyle causes a certain negativity in Bulgaria, where nowadays such a hairstyle symbolizes belonging to the lowest social strata. By the way, Poulianos/Moutsopoulos also make a two-dimensional reconstruction of King Samuel in the prime of his powers{5}, providing him with a hairstyle that is characteristic of some Roman and early Byzantine emperors. Despite everything said on this occasion, Galina Lebedinska obviously highly values ​​her work with the cast of the skull from grave 3 in the Church of St. Achilles" and puts this work of hers on the front cover of her latest book, summarizing her entire career.

In 2008, the only prominent Bulgarian follower of Prof. Mihail Gerasimov, associate professor Yordan Yordanov, made his version based on the skull from grave 3 and donated it to the National History Museum.

M. M. Gerasimov "Basic reconstruction of faces on the skull". Sovetskaya nauka, Moscow: 1949 // 190 pp. is not available in major Bulgarian libraries. Although the front cover of the book bears a clearly legible stamp "GIFT-1958", the copy in the library of the National History Museum was acquired by ransom in March 1979.


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{1} P[eter] Boev "Has the grave of Tsar Samuel been discovered?". Evening News, 29 December 1970. The article was not available to us now, here and below we quote from Nikolas C. Moutsopoulos "Le tombeau du tsar Samuil dans la basilique de saint Achille à Prespa". Etude balkanique No. 3, Sofia: 1984 // pp. 114-126, see especially p. 124, where the quotations from Boev's article are translated into French, and we translate them again into Bulgarian.

{2} Ά[ρης] Πουλιανός "Βυζαντινά Κρανία Πρέσπας". In: Ε.Ε.Π.Σ.Α.Π.Θ., τ. 5, Thessaloniki: 1971-1972 // σ. 439-450

{3} Cf. in detail Νικόλαος Κ. Μουτσόπουλος “The basilica of Agios Achilleiu in Préspa. Contribution to the study of the βυζαντινών μνημείων in the region". Τομος 2. Αριστοτέλειο Πενερισσότης Σελλάσσεινος, Κεντρο βυζαντινών πρόγραφών: 1989 // σ. 976-982

{4} Nikolas C. Moutsopoulos "Le tombeau du tsar Samuil dans la basilica de saint Achille à Prespa". Etude balkanique No. 3, Sofia: 1984 // p. 123

{5} Ibidem // σ. 981

Text: Ivan Petrinsky