Nearly two millennia after they lived, a peasant girl, a soldier, and a slave have been given new faces—and imagined lives—in an exhibition at Budapest’s Aquincum Museum. Titled “Once we were like you,” the show transforms Roman-era skulls discovered at the ancient city of Aquincum into lifelike reconstructions, offering a rare glimpse of the empire’s distant frontier.
Using archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and historical imagination, the curators aim to reconnect modern audiences with the individuals whose remains have survived for almost 2,000 years. The reconstructed faces are displayed alongside their original skulls, accompanied by fictional names, occupations, and possible life stories—an effort to make the ancient residents of Aquincum feel less like archaeological objects and more like real people.
Bringing the Dead to Life
“During the excavations we find the skulls, the skeletons, we document them, we roughly can tell whether they belonged to a man or a woman and the findings end up in the appropriate storage room, but that's it. The bodies have no weight, no life, no soul,” said Dr. Lóránt Vass, archaeologist and co-curator of the exhibition. “In connection with this exhibition, we thought what happens if we bring these people closer to the visitors by using archaeological findings, information provided by inscriptions, results of anthropological studies and results of archaeogenetics.”
Experts analyzed the shape and structure of the skulls, alongside archaeological evidence and DNA research, to estimate facial structure, possible ancestry, and characteristics such as hair, skin, and eye color. The most realistic reconstructions were created by facial reconstruction artist Emese Gábor, who works from a studio in Budakeszi, near Budapest. Using 3D-printed replicas of the original skulls, she rebuilt the faces layer by layer, studying the bones before modeling muscles and features.
While the faces are grounded in scientific evidence, the identities and biographies attached to them are not real. The curators created possible names, jobs, and backgrounds based on what researchers know about life in Aquincum. “It's all fiction. We don't even know the real names of these people, unfortunately. We tried to incorporate into their imagined life stories everything that anthropology and genetic studies have offered. But no matter what, it's still fiction. In fact, we can not say that they lived like that, it happened that way, but they could have been living that way,” said Dr. Péter Vámos, archaeologist and co-curator.
Researchers used historical naming customs, inscriptions, and anthropological studies to create plausible scenarios for the individuals. Alongside the facial reconstructions, visitors can see a reconstructed burial site and a Roman-era mummy.
The exhibition is a reminder of how far technology has come in bridging the gap between past and present. Similar techniques have been used elsewhere in Europe, such as in the Casa Batlló Exhibition in Barcelona, which uses AI and 3D scans to reveal hidden links between Gaudí, Miró, and Gomis. In Hungary, the project also highlights the cultural heritage of Aquincum, once a thriving Roman settlement on the Danube.
For those interested in how ancient architecture can inform modern life, the exhibition offers a parallel to lessons from Croatia's Rab Island, where ancient architecture and daily rhythms provide a blueprint for beating the heat. Meanwhile, the broader European context of cultural preservation and innovation continues to evolve, as seen in the Bayeux Tapestry's arrival in London for a historic UK exhibition.
The Aquincum Museum’s exhibition runs through the end of the year, offering a unique window into the lives of those who once called this corner of the Roman Empire home.
