A plaster cast was made of the skull in Israel and brought back to the Unit of Art in Medicine at the University of Manchester. Here forensic medical artist Richard Neave began to reconstruct the face. This painstaking process involved more than 100 standard scientific measurements from which corresponding facial features can be deduced. Over the course of two weeks the layers of muscle, fat and skin were slowly and carefully built up in clay. Although the skull on its own cannot determine the length or colour of hair, whether the man wore a beard or the colour of his skin, there are a number of clues that help establish these details.
Skin tones are darker, too.
Artistic Clues Artistic clues were found in frescoes of Jewish faces painted in the 3rd century CE, found in ruins at Dura Europos in Syria. The images show that Jewish biblical characters had hair that was dark, short, and curly, that they wore trimmed beards and that their skins were olive-coloured. So these clues also fitted the picture that was being built up. The New Testament contains intriguing clues to Jesus appearance. St Paul, for example, in his letter to the Corinthians, says it s a disgrace for men to wear long hair.