Today, representatives of the archdiocese and experts who participated in the research revealed the probable form of the patron saint of the Prague archbishopric, Saint Adalbert. First, they created a digital copy of the saint’s skull, which is part of the St. Vitus treasure. The researchers then estimated the shape using information about the attachment of the cranial muscles and the thickness of the soft tissues according to the specific dimensions of the skull. The unveiling of the image of the saint was part of the launch of the new publication Posunúté milénium, which maps the more than a thousand-year history of the archdiocese.
The digital copy of the saint’s skull was examined by a team of experts from the Czech Republic, Brazil, Poland and Australia led by the Brazilian Cicero Moraes. Among others, 3D designers, anthropologists or doctors contributed to the result.
Czech geoinformatics scientist Jiří Šindelář and photographer Martin Frouz also worked on the digital estimation of the image of Saint Adalbert. “First, it was necessary to create a digital copy of the saint’s skull. This is done using the multi-frame photogrammetry method,” explained Šindelář. The method consists in taking many photos of the skull that overlap and from which the program subsequently creates a 3D model.
The skull of St. Audrey is not preserved in its entirety, it is missing the lower jaw and part of the left cheek. According to Šindelář, before reconstructing the face, the skull needs to be completed, for which the method developed by the research team is used.
For Moraes, Vojtěch was not the first Czech saint whose appearance he reconstructed. In 2021, he and his team presented the effigy of Saint Ludmila.
Tags: Scientists probable form Audrey
