Science and art recreate face of Robert the Bruce

The face of Robert the Bruce reconstructed by LJMU’s Face Lab has been unveiled to mark the 750th anniversary of his birth.

The three-dimensional model of the Scottish king's head - described as the most realistic ever produced – has gone on display at Dunfermline Abbey, in Scotland.

The reconstruction was created as part of a collaboration between historians from the University of Glasgow and craniofacial experts led by Professor Caroline Wilkinson at Liverpool School of Art and Design.

The school’s Face Lab is an interdisciplinary research group focusing on facial depiction and representation, at the interface of art and science and part of LJMU’s world-leading Forensic Research Institute.

The model was produced using details from two virtual images of Robert the Bruce, who led the Scots to victory over English troops led by King Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

One of the images showed the king with leprosy and one without - as historians have long debated whether The Bruce suffered from the disease. A cast of his skull, which is held at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, was scanned to produce a 3D version with muscle formations and textured "skin" layered over it.

Dr Martin MacGregor, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Glasgow, came up with the idea of producing a model after the discovery of King Richard III of England's skeleton in Leicester in 2012.

Face Lab has also recreated the faces of Richard along with St Nicholas, Ramses II and others.

The team say virtually nothing was known about Robert’s appearance. This is what persuaded historians, museum curators, geneticists, forensic scientists and medical artists to combine to create this new 3D depiction of the head of the hero king, based upon the skull cast taken from a skeleton in a tomb discovered within the ruins of Dunfermline Abbey in 1818.

The head of the model is dressed in a helmet and topped by a crown, similar to one The Bruce is believed to have worn at the Battle of Bannockburn.

The exhibition - ‘The Many Faces of Robert the Bruce’ – has been reported on BBC News, Sky News and others and will be on display at Dunfermline Abbey until Saturday 7 September.

Facial Reconstruction on the head was carried out by Prof Caroline Wilkinson and Dr Sarah Shrimpton and 3D texturing, printing and finishing by Mark Roughley from Face Lab.