New Delhi, India
Scientists have made it possible for people to see the real face of Santa Claus for the first time in nearly 1,700 years.
Saint Nicholas of Myra was a Christian saint who was known to give gifts to people and was the inspiration behind the Dutch folk figure of Sinterklaas who later became Santa Claus.
However, there was no image of the man who was behind the myth and what the world saw was the representations of 'Old Saint Nick' who dated to centuries after his death in 343 AD.
Now for the first time, the man's actual face has been revealed after it was rebuilt forensically by the experts using his skull.
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The lead author of the new study Cicero Moraes said it was a "strong and gentle face". He added it was also "curiously compatible" with the "broad face" as was described in the poem "A Visit From St Nicholas" which dates back to 1823 and is widely known as "Twas The Night Before Christmas".
? SANTA CLAUS UNMASKED
For the first time in nearly 1,700 years, scientists have revealed the reconstructed face of Saint Nicholas of Myra, the inspiration behind Santa Claus.
Using his skull, experts created a "strong and gentle" visage, complete with a "broad face" and a… pic.twitter.com/d3lALEp0Gl
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 4, 2024
"The skull has a very robust appearance, generating a strong face, as its dimensions on the horizontal axis are larger than average. This resulted in a 'broad face' curiously compatible with the 1823 poem. This characteristic, combined with a thick beard, is very reminiscent of the figure we have in mind when we think of Santa Claus," Moraes added.
Here's how scientists recreated the face of Santa Claus
Co-author of the study and expert on the lives of saints Jos Luis Lira emphasised the importance of the real Nicholas of Myra.
"He was a bishop who lived in the early centuries of Christianity and had the courage to defend and live the teachings of Jesus Christ, even at the risk of his life," he said.
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"He was described as an old man who punished misbehaving children and rewarded those who behaved well with gifts. The image of Santa Claus as we know it today is based on an illustration by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly magazine in early 1863," Lira added.
"This in turn was inspired by the description in the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas attributed to Clement Clarke Moore," she said.
For creating the face, the data collected in the 1950s by Luigi Martino was used by Moraes and his team with permission from the Centro Studi Nicolaiani.
"We initially reconstructed the skull in 3D using this data. We then traced the profile of the face using statistical projections. We supplemented this with the anatomical deformation technique, in which the tomography of a living person's head is adjusted so that the virtual donor's skull matches that of the saint. The final face is an interpolation of all this information, seeking anatomical and statistical coherence," he said.
(With inputs from agencies)