Battle of Culloden skull recreated
3D copy from the head of musket victim in 1746
Part of a skull - believed to belong to a victim killed at the Battle of Culloden - has been recreated as a 3D digital model, complete with musket holes. The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) said the skull is the only known human remains from the battle in April 1746. The trust worked with the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh to create the 3D model, using a technique called photogrammetry involving overlapping digital photographs. The model shows an entry and exit wound, which researchers believe is from a musket ball fired from about 45 metres away. The skull has been on display in the college's Hall Museum and the new technology means the fragile bone fragment can now reach a wider audience without the dangers posed by being transported. NTS head of archaeological services Derek Alexander said: We cannot say whether the skull fragment belongs to a Jacobite or one of the government troops but the injury to the top of the head could be interpreted in a number of different ways.It could be from someone, head down, looking at the ground as they charge forward, or an individual who has already been wounded and is on their hands and knees, or indeed it could be someone hit while focusing on reloading their musket. The skull is a unique example of human remains from Culloden and graphically demonstrates the horrific wounds that would have been suffered by both the Jacobite and government armies as a result of close quarter musketry.'' The body part was one of more than 3,000 items the museum purchased from Sir Charles Bell in 1825 and the catalogue entry states it was found on a section of the battlefield at Culloden where the Highlanders made an attack on the King's troops. There are no further details from Bell's original records about when he acquired it, but it has been established that artefacts were collected from the battlefield in the years following 1746. NTS archaeology data officer Stefan Sagrott said photogrammetry is agreat tool''. Stefan said: By using it to record cultural heritage, it allows us to open up the past to even more people than ever before. We can take an object which would be too fragile for anyone to handle, photograph it, 3D model it and then make it available online for anyone to see, wherever they are.Another brilliant result of this, is that we can also 3D print the models, creating accurate replicas of objects, such as the Culloden skull, and they can then be displayed at a property and handled without any worry of damaging the original object.''