The Anaconda standard., 1895-12-23
FACES ARE RESTORED
How The Remains Of the Great Com
poser Zach Were Identified.
OFsCIENCEA AND ART
Features Successfully Reproduced
on a Skull That had Lain In a
q Forgotten Tomb for More
Than a Century. Tt.i

An extraordinary illustration OF what
may be accomplished by modern sci
ence and modern art working together.
has appeared quite recently In Ger
many. 1t Is well known that II a
skilled anatomist is given a single bone
from the skeleton of a dead animal
dead, 1t may be. since prehistoric
times-he will be able. from this slight
clew, 10 reconstruct for us the entire
framework of the creature 1t has
now been found possible to do a thing
even more remarkable. Give sculp-
Tor the skull of a man whom he has
never seen. on whose picture. even, he
has never set eyes, and he will be able.
in the light of the latest anatomical re-
searches, to build upon II a faithful
likeness of the dead-to mould upon II
a plaster portrait almost as accurate
in every detail of feature as II cast
had been modelled from life.
The story of the circumstance which
led to the discovery of how this result
can be accomplished is of unusual in
terest. Tward the end of last year the
ancient church of st. John at Leipsic
was pulled down to make room for a
larger building. Before laying the
foundations of the new edifice IL was
necessary to remove the collins in that
portion Of the churchyard. Now tradi-
tion had II that somewhere close by
Johann Sebastian Bach. the great mu-
sfcian, hay buried. Many attempts had
been made in former times to find the
grave, but always without success. In
the $50 years that had elapsed since the
remains of the master were commit
ted 20 earth, the exact locality of his
last resting place had been completely
forgotten. t4.
But now that II was necessary to dis
turb the soil where tradition has al
ways placed the grave. it was resolved
~. be, ~ff IAx tla.a
great organfst's tomb. At first the
task appeared one of insuperable diff
Guilty. In the extensive churchyards
that surround the church are vast ac-
cumulations of human remains. laying
layer upon layer The plague in olden
times, the war of Schmalkalden. the
Thirty Years war, the three days bat
tie Of Liepsic with Napoleon have all
added their victims in addition to the
normal death rate of the city. To dis
cover one single unknown grave must
have seemed well nigh hopeless; yet.
wonderful to relate, on the fourth day
after the commencement of the excava-
tfons, on Oct. 22, 1894, the remains of
Bach were found.
Besides the tradition already referred
TO the searchers had only two clews to
guide them. These were a couple of
entries in the register of st. Johns hos
pital. discovered after much labor by
Professor Wustmann, which showed
that the grave was a shallow one in
the open ground, and that the coffin
was made of oak. 1t was known that
since Bach's death only II oak collins
had been interred in the open ground, \
and the investigation was accordingly
narrowed at once On Oct. 22 the !
workmen came upon some pieces of an
oak coffin, but the remains upon be-
ing examined by Professor His of the
Leipsic university, were pronounced to
be those of a young woman.
On the afternoon of the same day an |
other oak coffin was found and this
time the remains proved to be those of
an old man. They were taken to the |
dissecting room at the university, and
after being cleaned and dried were laid
out on a slab. ,.-. /
The great question to be decided was
whether or not this skeleton was that
of Bach. Attention was at once con-
centrated upon the skull. It had four
peculiar characteristics. There was a
large brain pan, developed
in broad occipital bone. The fore
head was retreating, and the arches of
the eyebrows were 50 strongly devel-
oped that they formed a ridge over the
nose, which consequently sprang from
a deep indentation under this ridge
and projected at sharp angle from
the face. The eye sockets were rather
elongated, being more broad than high |
able feature of all-the lower jaw pro-
jected beyond the upper one.
The skull was now compared with
the two portraits of Bach preserved at
Leipsic. These portraits are at first
sight rather dissimilar, but on being
examined closely were found TO have in |
precisely these structural fea-
lures which were so strongly marked in
the skull. A collateral piece of evil
dence was the fact that a portrait OF
one of Bach's grandsons. who was
known to have closely resembled him.
was conspicuous for the same slant
ing line of forehead noticeable In the |
skull
1t seemed, therefore, only reasonable
to conclude that the remains which had
been discovered were indeed those OF
Bach; but the savants and antiquaries
engaged in the investigation were not
quite satisfied. They were anxious to
obtain still more decisive test; and IL
was while meditating upon this prob
lem that Professor His hit upon the
discovery referred TO. He
conceived the idea of reproducing in |
plaster over a cast OF the skull features |
calculated from his knowl-
edge of the human anatomy. This idea /
he communicated to Herr Seffner, a
famous German sculptor. who at once
the task, and in two days
produced a bust which bore a very
ctrlhiu6 ItsciiioidnCc 70 the pOflTdltS OF
Bach.
Still the critics were not content |
Some of them asserted that a clever
sculptor could form any face he pleased
over any skull that had no gross de-
formities; and to prove their case they
requested Herr Seffner to make a bust
OF Handel over the skull of Bach The
sculptor succeeded in producing a per-
feet external likeness. but internally.
to quote the words used by a writer
on the subject. the bust was an ana
lie. The artist had been
obliged to cover the forehead with a
thick layer of plaster. and to leave the
chin bone twhere in life the flesh Is
on the human face) almost
bare. Obviously a likeness produced
In such fashion was a mere mon
strosity.
The professor and the sculptor. en-
by this result. set about their |
task once more. They were Obliged 10 !
take mp the subject practically from |
the beginning. The possibility of iden-
tifying skulls has Indeed been much I
discussed I'm Germany during the last
20 years. Thus in 1921 Professor Kup-
-