A FORENSIC artist has reconstructed the face of 11th century Viking St Magnus, whose remains were found in the Orkney cathedral named after him, from century-old images of his skull.
Hew Morrison, of Dundee, used images taken of a wounded skull and bones found in a wooden box at St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall in 1919 as the basis for the reconstruction.
Magnus Erlendsson was known as the Earl of Orkney, having been born into Orkney nobility in 1080. His family also has strong connections to Norwegian royalty, who ruled the islands from 1098.
The strongly religious warrior refused to fight in the Viking raid which resulted in the Battle of Anglesey, but was involved in a dispute over the succession to the Orkney throne with his cousin Haakon after returning to the islands in 1105.
He was given the earldom of Orkney and jointly ruled with Haakon, until 1114, when their supporters fell out and they prepared for battle at islands’ assembly.
However, the fighting was averted and a fragile peace accord ensued until the two sides’ ships met on the island of Egilsay, where Magnus sought refuge in the local church, and was killed with an axe.
The exact date of Magnus’s martyrdom is uncertain, but it is thought to have occurred between 1115 and 1118. The annual St Magnus International Festival is to mark the anniversary in June.
Using similar computer software, Mr Morrison has previously reconstructed the image of how a woman whose remains were found in a Caithness cemetery in 1987, but who died 3,700 years ago, would have looked.
A professor from Aberdeen University and a minister had examined the bones found at St Magnus Cathedral and vouched their authenticity.
Mr Morrison, who had been fascinated by the find since he was a boy, said: “I had forgotten about it until I visited Orkney back in 2015 whilst working on another facial reconstruction project.
“I managed to track down through Orkney Archives excellent photographs taken in 1925 that were suitable to use.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here