Remarkable stories of everyday people are painstakingly reconstructed, along with their faces, which haven’t been seen for centuries.



Skeletons unearthed in a range of circumstances get the History Cold Case treatment, such as a bizarre mummy, found by accident in the cellar of a Victorian house. Each forensic case opens a different window on the history of our forebears and takes us deep into gripping personal tales buried deep in British recorded history that we’ve never heard before.

Ipswich Man
An apparently African skeleton, unearthed near a medieval English monastery, pushes Professor Sue Black’s forensics team to its limits. Bone analysis offers clues about the true origins of the mysterious skeleton and facial reconstruction painstakingly reveals his face, not seen for centuries. The historical trail points to new evidence about British ancestry and the case takes an unexpected twist when they discover the tragic truth about how he died.

Mummified Child
The team heads back into a dark corner of the 19th century, to a time when corpses were turned into trophies and children were sold by the inch. Their subject is the bizarre mummified body of a child. Sue and the team pick up the trail that leads to body snatching, serial murder and anatomical science in darkest Victorian Britain. Can they give our boy a home, a face, or a name?

Stirling Man
The team opens up the historical cold case of a mysterious skeleton discovered by accident in a series of forgotten rooms in Scotland’s Stirling Castle. The history cold case team is drawn into one of the bloodiest periods of our history when Scotland and England were locked in a war for supremacy. The forensic trail leads to a unique and extraordinary 600 year old document and the team is shocked to discover the skeleton’s likely identity.

Crossbones Girl
A skeleton unearthed in an archaeological dig in the historic borough of Southwark in London sparks a new cold case when it is found to be covered with disfiguring scars. Renowned forensics expert Professor Sue Black leads her team at the Centre for Anatomy and Human ID at the University of Dundee in an investigation that will drag them into the seediest corners of early Victorian Britain. They use the latest facial reconstruction techniques to bring the identity of one of history’s missing persons back into chilling view, but in the process the team discovers much more than they bargained for.