Battle of Gotland warrior’s face reconstructed with 3D technology

To draw conclusions about the fighter’s gruesome death, Moraes created two digital 3D facial models that recreated what the man may have looked like before being bludgeoned in battle. One was a simple reconstruction in black and white and the other incorporated a more speculative artistic approach.

This second image provided the details needed to understand the warrior’s demise by showing him in vibrant realistic color. The man had dark hair, a full beard, and a huge gash extending across the lower portion of his face.

Modeling an axe blow to the bone

"Among the weapon options that could have been used, the ax seemed the most coherent," Moraes told Live Science in an email. "So, I modeled an ax and placed it on the bone. It's hard to know if it killed him, but it certainly did a lot of damage to the soft tissue," Moraes said. "It was shocking to see that ax stuck in his face."

The man’s skull boasts a deep crack stretched diagonally from the bottom-left portion of the lower jaw up to the hollow cavity where the nose would have once been. In addition, several teeth seem to be missing, likely knocked out by the force of the attack. Only one thing could have caused such damage, says Moraes: a brutal axe to the face.

Moraes speculates that the man was one of 1,800 local farmers who died during The Battle of Gotland, which was led by Denmark's King Valdemar Atterdag to gain control over the sparsely populated Swedish island. The man would have likely been attacked because he did not have the warrior skills to defend himself.

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