Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gerasimov

Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gerasimov (

.

Early life

Gerasimov was born 1907 in St. Petersburg shortly before his doctor father was posted to settlement near Irkutsk. As a child he studied the bones of prehistoric animals that were unearthed during the construction of the area.

Gerasimov produced his first reconstructions of prehistoric

.

In 1928, Gerasimov studied in the archaeology department of the

(1939, dates referenced to Gerasimov, p. 185–186).

Faces of kings

In June 1941, Stalin sent Gerasimov to Uzbekistan with a team of archaeologists to open the tombs of Timur and other members of the Timurid dynasty. An apocryphal story from this time claims that Gerasimov's team opening Timur's tomb resulted in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. According to the story, Timur's memorial bore the warning “When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble”, and when the sarcophagus was raised and opened on June 19, another inscription inside the casket read: “Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I". Three days later, on June 22, Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa. Even though people close to Gerasimov claim that this story is a fabrication, the legend of the Curse of Timur persists.^[1] During World War II, Gerasimov worked at the military hospital in Tashkent; hundreds of victims of the war provided him with important statistical data on human skulls of different races.

Gerasimov continued to hone his methods. In 1950, he received the

) where he continued his research. He also acquired a reputation as a man who charmed ladies by complimenting them on the shape of their lips.

In 1953, the

) and Gerasimov reconstructed his face. Afterwards, he received an extra month's pay for the job. In 1961, Gerasimov travelled to Europe to help the Germans find the skull of the poet Schiller from the skulls in a mass grave.

Gerasimov died in 1970 and was survived by four children.

Heritage

Gerasimov's method has spread across the globe and has been instrumental in reconstructions of what the pharaohs or, controversially, Jesus might have looked like. In 1991 Russian investigators also used the methods to clarify the identities of the remains of the family of the last Tsar.

Gerasimov's work is exhibited at:

• State Historical Museum, Moscow
• Anthropological museum of Moscow State University
• Museums of Georgia (skulls of Georgian origin, 1946)
• Museums of Uzbekistan (skulls of Timurid dynasty, 1941–1942)

Popular culture

• In popular culture (e.g., the film
  German-Soviet War, whose turning point coincided with Gerasimov's eventual reburial of the ancient conqueror's skull. Gerasimov was also fictionalized as Professor Andreev in the detective novel Gorky Park
  .
• A 2022 Bengali novel Jagio Na Amay Jagio Na (Don't wake me up), by Himadri Kishor Dashgupta set on the story of exhumation of Tamerlane skeleton.^[2]

Bibliography

• Gerasimov, M.M. (1931). Mal’ta – Paleolithic Station (preliminary data): Findings of excavations in 1928/29. Vlast’ truda (in Russian).
• Gerasimov, M.M. (1958) Paleolithic Mal’ta-site (excavation (1956–1957). Soviet Ethnography, 3, 28–53 (in Russian).

See also

• List of Russian artists
• Venus figurines of Mal'ta

References

1. ^ "Facial Reconstruction, Nazis, and Siberia: The story of Mikhail Gerasimov". 25 January 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2020.
2. ^ "sharodiya kishor bharati 1429 boierpathshala.blogspot.com.pdf". Google Docs. Retrieved 13 October 2022.

• Gerasimov's 1949 book in Russian, listing 70 works from 1927 to 1947: Герасимов, М.М., Основы восстановления лица по черепу, "Советская наука", М., 1949

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerasimov.

• Eve Conant – Man of 1,000 Faces: The forensic genius of Mikhail Gerasimov (Archaeology magazine July/August 2003)
• Mikhail Gerasimov Career
• Reconstruction of Appearance of Historical Personalities