What did Helen of Troy look like? The Trojan War & Facial Re-Creations | Royalty Now

this video is brought to you by Squarespace hello everyone and welcome back to royalty now where we bring you face to face with figures from the past and talk about their history Helen of Troy is known in Greek mythology as the most beautiful woman in the world the face that launched a thousand ships today we'll tell you her story and then I'll reveal my reconstruction of what the perfect Greek woman would have looked like and you can judge for yourself so let's go ahead and get started to know Helen of Troy we must know the story of the Trojan War almost 3,000 years ago a blind poet named Homer wrote his epics Iliad and odyssey which would become some of the most influential pieces of literature of all time in the Iliad Homer writes the story of an immense War larger than there had ever been before between Troy and the kings of Greece the reason why so many men fought in this war was Helen and her legendary Beauty Helen of Troy was born Helen of Sparta the daughter of the Spartan Queen by the time she had grown into a young woman rumors had spread throughout Greece of her beauty and great men from all over Greece began seeking her hand in marriage but a problem soon arose with so many of the richest men and greatest warriors fighting for her hand Helen was worried that whoever she ended up choosing would soon be killed by the others to prevent any conflict and fearing for their own lives the men were convinced by odys to swear an oath to protect the man that Helen chose and even to come to his Aid if Helen was ever stolen from him obviously hoping to be the one chosen by Helen every man agreed to this bargain the man that she would end up choosing was menola of minini younger brother to the richest king in all of Greece at Agamemnon the other suitors would leave their wedding not knowing that the oath they had just sworn to prevent conflict would begin the largest War they would ever see on the other side of the aan sea the Trojans lived rich and Powerful in a beautiful city called Troy which was surrounded by indestructible walls that had never been breached and many thought they had been made by the gods themselves the Trojan King Priam was an old and beloved King who had many children among them was Prince Hector one of the most respected Warriors in the Known World Brave and loyal he was everything a man could want from a son and air and then there was Paris before he was born a prophecy was told that Paris would bring destruction to Troy but Paris mother Queen hecuba could not bring her herself to kill him she would instead give him to a Shepherd to do the deed but the shepherd could not do it either instead deciding to raise him as his own son everyone in Troy was relieved believing the prophecy had been diverted but fate had something else in mind for Paris and for Troy far away on Mount Olympus the gods were celebrating a wedding oh all the gods and heroes from Greece had been invited except for one ays the goddess of Discord she was angry and jealous of being left out and she would decide to do what she did best she created a golden apple with the inscription to the most beautiful she tossed the Apple into the party knowing the chaos it would cause soon the goddesses Hera Athena and Aphrodite were viciously arguing over this golden an apple Zeus the king of all the gods did not want to anger any of his goddesses so he chose another solution he would select a humble Shepherd known for his good judgment to decide who received the golden apple the Shepherd that Zeus chose was none other than the Lost Prince of Troy Paris each goddess promised to give Paris a gift if he chose them as the most beautiful Hera offered to make him a king Athena offered to make him The Greatest Warrior the world had ever seen But Aphrodite knew what Paris really wanted love her offer was the love of the most beautiful woman in the world so Paris chose Aphrodite and in return he was given instructions go to Sparta and find Helen when the two finally met Aphrodite made sure it was love at first sight and Helen could not imagine her life without Paris from that day forward they would run away together secretly stowing away in a ship and with no other place to go Paris would travel back home to Troy when they arrived the Trojan King Priam saw his long lost son Paris for the first time since his birth he immediately recognized him and welcomed him back with open arms when introduced to Helen the Trojan King and his people were mesmerized by her beauty and crowds would gather just to Glimpse the beautiful Helen but Prince Hector was not as happy to see his long lost brother he recognized Helen of Sparta and knew what chaos her presence would cause menola would never let Helen go in fact Hector knew menola would declare war on Troy and that he would not be coming alone finding his wife gone menola was enraged he would immediately call on all the kings and princes the richest and greatest men in all of Greece to honor The Pact that they had made but first he would go to his brother Agamemnon was the most powerful King in all of Greece and he would be the first to land on the Trojan Shores and avenge this slight but even with his large Force agam knew that Greece had little chance against the Trojans and their legendary defenses the hopes of all of Greece relied on one Warrior Achilles said to be the son of Zeus himself shortly after his birth Achilles mother had dipped his body in a river that granted immortality but she was holding the baby boy only by his heel as she dipped him and she forgot to submerge him entirely as Achilles grew into a man he dreamed of being The Greatest Warrior the world had ever seen and the Trojan War gave him that chance with Achilles recruited Agamemnon and menola set sail with a thousand ships headed directly for Troy and for Helen when the Army finally arrived they were met with Troy's enormous City walls and the siege of Troy would begin but time and time again they would fail and days turned into weeks turned into months with no progress 9 years would come to pass with Troy's legendary walls Still Standing but other things had changed drastically over the course of the war Achilles had grown to hate Agamemnon and in the 10th year he decided he was done fighting for him with their Greatest Warrior now gone the Greeks began to take heavy losses and soon an offer was given to the Trojans in order to end the war once and for all menola and Paris would fight to the death for Helen the two men would decide the fate of every soldier on the battlefield with both armies looking on Paris and menola began their duel and from the very beginning it was obvious that the shepherd Prince Paris was no match for the warrior king Mena when Paris fell to the floor Mena was ready to strike the final blow but before he could reach Paris Aphrodite reached down and removed Paris from the battlefield reuniting him with Helen with tears in his eyes Paris would hold on to Helen happy to be alive and be in love but Helen had just seen his terrible defeat and his Escape that had no honor and her love for Paris began to fade Prince Hector too had watched his brother and cringed with embarrassment at his brother's defeat knowing that countless more Trojan men would die because of the war Hector took things into his own hands he said goodbye to his family his wife and baby and led his men outside of the walls they would attempt one final push to drive Agamemnon and his forces out of Troy for good Hector and his army began to push into agamemnon's forces with no fear of death the daring attack caught Agamemnon by surprise and soon the Trojan forces were ripping through the Greeks pushing them all the way back into the sea but just as the defeat of the Greek forces looked imminent Achilles iconic armor is seen on the battlefield just the sight of his armor is enough for the Greeks to begin fighting back against the brink of defeat Achilles was there to save them fear began to spread through the Trojans and the battle Battlefield soon turned into chaos with men fleeing and fighting everywhere seeing the perfect moment in all the chaos Hector would charge directly at Achilles expecting the fight of his lifetime but with just one drive of his spear Achilles body falls with a thud to the shock and awe of everyone Hector slowly removes the helmet from who he believed to be Achilles but instead finds patrias Achilles closest friend dead before his eyes it turned out that A desperate patrias had stolen Achilles armor in order to inspire the Greeks to fight back one last time and while he had succeeded he had lost his life in doing so the Greek army would quickly fight off the remaining Trojans and grab patrias bringing his body to Achilles when Achilles saw patrias dead he felt nothing but Monumental anguish and he even contemplated taking his own life but soon his grief would turn into rage and he could think of nothing else but revenge against the man that had killed patrickus Achilles quickly scanned and found Hector on the battlefield began to chase him down until Hector finally turned to face him with rage fueling his movements Achilles would quickly get Hector off balance and Hector fell to the ground no knowing his life was over Hector asked of Achilles just one thing that Achilles treat his body with respect so that his wife could properly mourn his death with that Achilles pierced Hector with his Spear and ended his life unfortunately for Hector Achilles wasn't satisfied with this Revenge he would tie Hector's body to his Chariot and drag the corpse through the battlefield knowing that Helen Paris his father King Priam and his wife were all watching that night King Priam would sneak into Achilles Camp get down on his knees and beg Achilles for his son's body with his rage finally subsided and moved by the king's genuine sorrow he would give Hector back to the Trojans the entire city mourned and Helen was filled with bitter regret her love for Paris had completely died and she had caused the Trojans immense heartache and loss all hope was now lost for the Trojans and achilles victory was all but assured Achilles and his men began to climb the walls of Troy but suddenly he would feel a horrible pain the worst pain he had ever felt in the back of his heel it was Paris who had shot at Achilles and hit him with a poison dart and the only part of his body that his mother had not dipped into the river that made him Invincible his skin began to turn white and his strength failed him Achilles The Greatest Warrior the world had ever seen was dead the Greeks fell into utter despair knowing that Victory without Achilles was [Music] impossible the next morning the Trojans awoke to all of the Greek camps taken down and the ships sailing away from their Shores in front of the gate there was a large statue of a horse enormous cheers erupted through the city they thought the war had finally been won and the people opened the gates and brought in this horse which they believed was a final peace offering from the Greeks but that night Greece's greatest soldiers began to file out of the giant horse sculpture killing all of the guards and opening the gates to the impenetrable City signaling to their ships that their plan had worked the Trojan citizens would wake up to their City burning and thousands of soldiers running through its streets after 10 years of war the fall of Troy was here the Greek soldiers would kill nearly everyone within its walls including King Priam and Paris Helen desperate and Afraid was found not long after menola after all these years raised his sword to kill his wife but at the sight of her he realized that he couldn't her stunning Beauty had captivated him once again and he still loved her he would instead forgive Helen and take her back home to Sparta where they would live a long life together throughout time people people have argued whether Helen is the villain of the story manipulative and disloyal or one of its victims used for her beauty as a pawn for the gods either way the story of the Trojan War its tragedies and its triumphs begin and end with Helen and the face that launched a thousand ships so how do we recreate this face that launched a thousand ships what a question this is Helen's story has been told numerous times in numerous ways throughout the centuries her beauty and personality traits change depending on the author and of course the author's own idea of what the perfect woman looks like my goal with the recreation here is to make the ideal woman using ancient Greek beauty standards and give an accurate depiction of what a woman considered extremely beautiful in ancient Sparta would look like let's first start with some descriptions of Helen that will will use as a jumping off point for the recreation now of course Helen is a myth but I'm going to use these to inform my artwork Homer's Works barely give us anything we get three descriptors white armed long dressed and lovely haired perhaps Homer was intentionally vague so that each reader could construct their own vision of Helen in a surviving poem fragment by safo Helen's hair is described as zanti which translates to anywhere between blonde light brown and reddish in other Lyric poems she is described as having gleaming blue eyes now let's talk about ancient Greek beauty standards from the time The Iliad and odyssey were written for women a full softly shaped body with a small waist was ideal and this would also apply to the face they preferred delicately curved facial features a long straight aqualin nose and large eyes can be seen on idealized statues from the time period the most desirable hair was long with a wavy texture one of the reasons Helen is always depicted as light-haired with blue eyes in art is that this was rare coloring for the Greeks and therefore highly sought after Helen was Spartan so she would have worn the Dorian style pep loss typical of Spartan women this was a tunic style dress fastened at the shoulders with pins and was made of linen or fabric similar to wool women's clothing would be naturally dyed and could be any number of colors highclass women wore plenty of jewelry rings armbands pendants and earrings in order to display wealth and decorate themselves so knowing all this how do we actually construct Helen I'm going to show you Helen first while talking through what I did to create her so let's take a look at my take on the face that launched 1 thousand ships now [Music] Helen's face here has been constructed using the golden ratio with the influence for her features taken from this statue of Aphrodite using the features of the goddess of love and beauty seemed like a great place to start for Helen the Greeks being Geniuses of mathematics and art use the golden ratio to guide their art and architecture also known as the Divine proportion this principle states that when a line is divided into two parts in a ratio of 1 to 1.618 it creates the ideal proportion now I'm not going to pretend to know why this works mathematically I'm an artist not a mathematician but this phenomenon has been studied extensively and this proportion which is found everywhere in nature has been proven to be pleasing to our human brains according to this principle a balanced face is approximately 1.6 times longer than it is wide and the eyes should be about 1.6 times as wide as the lips the lower lip is 1.6 times as large as the upper lip and so on these proportions have been used to construct every single part of her face here on Greek statues the only exception to this rule is a slightly longer nose than the ratio would suggest so I've included that on Helen as well now let's add some makeup to Helen based on what we know of Greek Beauty culture at the time Greek women were no stranger to cosmetics and used them extensively fair skin was really prized in Greek culture but mostly because of social class high class women wouldn't need to work in the Sun as a result of this standard G women would use powdery white makeup to lighten their skin even further natural dyes like beetroot were used as Rouge to their lips and cheeks where they loved a dramatic look was in the eyes and eyebrows coal was used to line the eyes a smokey eye was a very popular look it was also popular to have bold dark eyebrows even eyebrows that met in the middle were seen as a sign of symmetry and Purity obviously a little garish to our modern gaze as a bonus I've also created a Meenan style Helen the myth of Helen of Troy may have originated even further back than Greek culture it's thought that Homer may have been writing based on existing mythology in his own time if Helen was a real woman she would have lived around 1200 bcee during the Meenan period this plaster head of a woman dates back to that time now we don't know much about it historians believe it could be the head of a goddess but it's interesting enough that Helen has been depicted in this style in modern Recreations I've Incorporated the dark hair and eyes of this figure as well as the red rosette makeup so let us know in the comments ments below is this how you imagin Helen to look which version did you like of her the best and do you think this face would launch a thous chips thank you all so much for watching and we'll see you for the next [Music] video with Squarespace you can literally drag and drop your way to a beautiful website today choose from a huge array of templates and then easily customize every detail there are some genuinely Charming features that you can take advantage of stuff that I would never know how to code myself after you get up and running you can use the built-in analytics dashboard to gain insight into how visitors are using your site and it's just onwards and upwards from there go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com royalty now Studios to save 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Channel: Royalty Now Studios

Views: 1,729,530

Keywords: real face of, what historical figures would look like, true face of, true faces of, real faces of historical figures, true faces of historical figures, what historical figures would look like today, royalty now, roylaty now, history documentary, history, biography, facts, helen of troy, helen of troy real face, what did helen of troy look like, who was the most beautiful woman in the world, most beautiful woman, most beautiful woman to ever exist, most beautiful woman in history

Id: F7bKwTQf25o

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 18 2023