New online catalog Mikhail Gerasimov: Facial Reconstructions From the Crania

Mikhail Gerasimov: Facial Reconstructions from the Crania online catalog presents a collection of sculptural reconstructions from crania, made by the anthropologist and archaeologist Michael Gerasimov and owned by Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera). These are reconstructed heads of primates, fossil hominins, ancient and medieval people, and a few Russian princes. Certain portraits such as those of males from Yuzhny Oleniy (Southern Reindeer) Island on Lake Onega, that of a nomad from Kirghizia, etc., are based on crania from the collections of the Department of Anthropology.

Also, the catalog introduces rare photographs of the 1936 excavations of Mesolithic burials in the Murzak-Koba grotto, Crimea, the 1936-38 excavations at Yuzhny Oleniy Island.

The online catalog continues the exhibition Faces of Our Ancestors, held at our Museum in 2007-08 on the occasion of Gerasimov’s centenary.