13. Johann Sebastian Bach Finally Reveals His Secrets
The musical composer Johann Sebastian Bach is a bit of a mystery because he was a fiercely private person. He wrote very few letters, and only posed for one portrait during his lifetime. However, the Bach Museum in Eisenach, Germany, just so happened to have his skull. An anthropologist from Scotland named Caroline Wilkinson borrowed the skull so that she could make a scan and 3D print of his skull. After putting the information into a computer program, she was able to make a depiction of what he would have looked like. Even though a skull can give you the basic shape of someone’s features, it can’t tell you about wrinkles or fat. So Wilkinson had to dig through historic documents to add on those features. The result actually does look strikingly similar to his portrait.