Changing the Face of History

Reported September 2005

MOUNT VERNON, Va. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- If a picture tells a thousand words then the portrait of America's first president, George Washington, may be telling a lie. Scientists are giving our founding father a virtual face-lift and revealing some surprising new looks.

There's no mistaking the face on the dollar bill. Even 10-year-old Ella Nejadi knows what George Washington looks like. "I know that he had a wig of white curly hair," she says. Not flattering, but it's what history teaches. Now scientists say it may not be what he really looked like. To prove it, they're re-creating our founding father.

Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Ph.D., a forensic anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Penn., says, "I have to do as much reconstruction of what I think he was like, physically, at the older age so I could then apply general rules of aging, but reverse to make him younger."

Forensic anthropologists use lasers to scan sculptures, busts and dentures. Then, computer scientists feed the scans into a computer that breaks down the image into tiny points. Using mathematics, the points are connected to form an image.

The new images are helping change the perception of Washington as a stiff, stern president. Schwartz says, "He would have been tough because he was tromping through the woods, but he would not have been as bulked up as he would have been later in life." The final images of Washington will help re-construct life-size models. But the young, good-looking Washington is sure to make the biggest impact.

James C. Rees, executive director of the Historic Mount Vernon in Mount Vernon, Va., says, "If we can show him as the athletic, as the adventurous guy that he really was, I think he'll be very appealing to kids." The completed life-size models will show Washington at ages 19, 45 and 57. The full exhibit featuring reconstructed images and models is scheduled to open at George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens in October 2006. An on-line version of the exhibit will also be available.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Historic Mount Vernon
3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway,
Mount Vernon, VA 22121
(703) 780-2000, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., EST



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