Saturday, November 3, 2018

Putting a face to Queen Judita, Saint Zdislava, and the ‘Vampire of Čelákovice’

Her beauty and mind were said to have been beyond compare. But when the remains of Judita of Thuringia were first unearthed sixty years ago in the Benedictine monastery of Teplice, there was no way to tell whether the royal chronicler hadn’t rather exaggerated the feminine charms of the Queen consort of Bohemia. After all, she’d been dead for more than eight centuries. But now, thanks to a team of Czech scientists, archaeologists, artists – and a Brazilian expert in digital facial reconstruction – you can judge for yourself.

Queen Judita, photo: archive of Cícero André da Costa Moraes

Writing in the year 1167, the chronicler Vincentius described Queen Judita, by then in her early thirties, as a “lady of stature whose beauty exceeds the human form, almost as if she were divine offspring.” The venerable scribe goes on to praise her enterprising spirit, exemplary knowledge of the arts, science and literature, and fluency in Latin and the affairs of men – politics.

read more here @ Radio Prague