Page 44 - All About History 55 - 2017 UK

Terror on the Ice

HMS Erebus and HMS
Terror as they appeared in
Illustrated London News

The John Franklin statue was
erected in Waterloo Place,
London, in 1866

Faces From
the Past

Scientists have been able to reconstruct the
faces of remains found at Erebus Bay to
identify crew members
Craniofacial reconstruction is where art and forensics
meet. Only ever intended as an approximation of an
individual, never for positive identification, forensic artist
Diana Trepkov worked on several facial reconstructions using
oil-based clay, frontal and lateral radiographs, skulls and a
collection of bones taken from the memorial cairn on the
south shore of Erebus Bay, southwest of King William Island.
A map pinpointing the routes and She described the process as “75 to 80 per cent science and
findings of the explorers who tried 20 to 25 per cent artistic ability.”
to find Franklin The skulls, in good condition, were identified as belonging
to Caucasian and European men aged 18-40. One of the jaws
was missing its lower mandible, so a replacement was used.
members had died and the remaining 105 survivors Torrington’s body in particular suggested that he Unlike missing persons or murder victims, whose remains
had resolved to abandon the ships and head south had been ill for quite some as it was so thin that his undergo craniofacial reconstruction, the artists working on the
Franklin expedition skulls had no photos to base their work
towards Back’s Great Fish River. ribs were visible, while his lungs indicated that he’d on. A few daguerreotype portraits exist, taken of 14 officers
What exactly happened between the crewmen’s recently had pneumonia. However, analysis of his before the trip commenced.
last note and when the Inuit met the survivors in hair showed signs of lead poisoning. Many believe The reconstructed face of cranium #35 resembled
Lieutenant Graham Gore, who died before HMS Erebus
1850 is unclear. However, skeletons dotted along this can be traced to the tinned food in the stores, was abandoned, so it cannot possibly be him. But the
King William Island suggest the men did march but the ships’ elaborate heating systems would skull belonged to a man with a large nose and deep-set
eyes. Cranium
south, resting where they fell, weak from hunger, have used lead pipes, which could have slowly #80 has
scurvy and the extreme cold. Despite Dickens’ poisoned their water supply. All of this suggests the been potentially
reservations, forensic analysis showed that many of expedition was doomed from the start. attributed to
James Reid, ice
the bodies had been eaten by desperate survivors. In Frankenstein, Robert Walton eventually decides master on Erebus, © National Maritime Museum, London; Parks Canada Thierry Boyer; Alamy
But what actually killed Franklin and his men to abandon his quest for the Northwest Passage but cannot be
before the ships were abandoned? The carefully rather than risk being destroyed by the ice. Thanks conclusively
proven. Cranium
tended graves found by HMS Advance at Beechey to Franklin and explorers like him, we are not #80 was that
Island were exhumed in 1984. The bodies of John ignorant: the Northwest Passage was found in 1854 of a man with a Harry Goodsir is one of the
narrow nose, high crewmen who has been identified
Torrington, William Braine and John Hartnell and, thanks to sea ice decline, is increasingly used. cheekbones and through facial reconstruction
underwent a thorough autopsy, their remains However, the mystery of what exactly happened to a broad jaw.
remarkably preserved by the permafrost. HMS Terror and HMS Erebus endures.
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