Friday 17 April 2015

The Weighty Role Of A Forensic Architect

By Stella Gay


When construction projects unearth a site of archaeological interest, all construction stops and the experts are called in. Sometimes construction will cease for months, years, or for all time depending on the historical value of the dig. Such a spot is where a day starts for the average forensic architect.

These scientists must be trained in several forms of architecture as well as general police-style evidence gathering and evaluation. There has been violence committed on basically every corner of the Earth, and these professionals try to tell the stories. For this reason, museums who continue to collect new artifacts will often have such a team employed there.

There is great truth to the notion that the victor gets to write history, but these officers of analysis are attempting to correct some historical inaccuracies. This is a point of great pride, as it is only an unbiased account of an event which shows the agony and courage on all sides of any conflict. It can be difficult when they find evidence that contradicts the accepted narrative, but it is these inaccuracies which dishonor our ancestors.

The information these professionals obtain can come from many different sources. Newspapers on microfilm, compared to a physical site, compared to aerial x-ray footage, compared to eye-witness accounts is their usual recipe. These men and women have created this field, and within it they are the stewards of history.

When a body is found law enforcement is generally called, but these officers frequently request the assistance of a team of architectural historians. If the body cannot be compared successfully against someone on the missing person roster, then it is always possible that the body is much older than anticipated. Some murders of the old world have even been solved, thus closing a door on an unexplained murder hundreds of years ago.

Who can possibly forget the bog people who were found in Europe, and sacrificed. It was clear that some of these bodies were given proper ritual death, and that the victim may have even been a voluntary participant in his or her own demise. Other bodies were obviously murdered and their bodies disposed of at this location in order to avoid detection.

Perhaps the most interesting person on any forensics team is the sculptor. This person has been trained to know where the fleshy areas on a face are, and what their depth should be as compared to the bone. They are able to recreate a face using only a skeleton, and they do this with scary precision.

By studying these sites of historical or archaeological interest, these professionals seek to establish a chain of events that accurately recreates the story. This information is then granted to the general public, and it becomes the official narrative taught to school children. Their research has corrected stories of many of histories most unforgettable moments.




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