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THE TUDORS
This is what a Dubliner looked like in the 16th century
Facial reconstruction analysis has been performed on a skull discovered at the entrance of Trinity College in 2014.
THIS IS WHAT a man living in Dublin in or around the 16th century would have looked like, according to new research.
The recreation is a result of nearly three years worth of research concerning a find of human skeletons at the entrance to Trinity College Dublin in August 2014.
Those discoveries were made as a result of monitoring works for the Luas Cross City project. The actual post-excavation analysis itself was undertaken by Rubicon Heritage Services on behalf of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), the state body behind the Luas project.
The five skeletons that were recovered were later found to date from between 1485 and 1603, dating them firmly from the Tudor period and the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
The remains were not placed in a formal graveyard, but were rather found in the area of the Hoggen Green, one of Dublin’s three main commonages of the time.
The altogether pleasant-looking chap pictured above (the recreation came from the best-preserved of the skulls) would have lived his life at the poorer end of society – with analysis suggesting a life of poor childhood nutrition and heavy labour.
A native Dubliner, he would have been aged between 25 and 35 and been about 5’6″ in height. That lifespan is easily the longest of the five remains found - the other four all died between the ages of 13 and 17.
The recreation of the man’s visage was carried out by Professor Caroline Wilkinson and her Face Lab team at Liverpool John Moore’s University.
Meanwhile, the monitoring and post-excavation analysis of the various archaeological discoveries made as part of Luas Cross City continue.
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