Robert the Bruce 3D model ‘is the most realistic ever produced’

He said: “In a lifetime of only 55 years, Robert Bruce achieved the impossible and restored peace and freedom to a war-torn and colonised kingdom. Contemporary sources tell us much about his remarkable life, but virtually nothing about his appearance.

“This is what persuaded a team of historians, museum curators, geneticists, forensic scientists and medical artists to combine to create a new 3D depiction of the head of the hero king, based upon the skull cast taken from a skeleton in a tomb discovered within the ruins of Dunfermline Abbey in 1818.”

The head of the model is dressed in a helmet and topped by a crown, similar to one The Bruce is believed to have worn at the Battle of Bannockburn.

Dr MacGregor added: “It is fitting that Dunfermline Abbey, where Robert Bruce was buried in 1329, should host an exhibition which brings us face-to-face with Scotland’s greatest monarch.”