CAN THIS MAN SHOW US THE TRUE HEIGHT OF THE SOMERTON MAN?

This is a photograph of Professor, later Sir John Burton Cleland, taken at the Adelaide Railway Station while heading off on a field trip in 1934.

In this post, we examine how we might extract information from this photograph and use it to establish a reasonable estimate of the height of Professor Cleland and from that point, establish an estimated height of the Somerton Man.

 

The thought on how we might achieve the goal of establishing a height from this photograph came from this excerpt from the document known as 'Cleland's notes', I will include a download link for the notes later in this post  I should point out that the notes are not the full copy some parts of it have been removed before it was made available.

Here's the excerpt:

This paragraph tells us that the jacket worn by the Somerton Man on the day his body was found indicates that it fitted Professor Cleland, except for it being tight to button up.

For that jacket to fit Professor Cleland, indicates that both men were the same or very similar height.

KNOWN OBJECT DIMENSIONS

To calculate the sizes of objects or people from within an image, we must have an object or objects of known dimensions within that image. In that regard, this particular photograph has several objects that could fulfill that role.

In this standard-sized image, 8 " X 10" as per the file on SA State Library, I have marked several objects that we can measure and use that photo measurement to calculate the approximate height of Sir John.

In the calculations, the final output variance is +/- 1 inch

Here's the objects list:

From the top:

• The face height, the known median height of a face as in the point central to the left and right eye to the point of the chin is 120mm.
• The strap attached to the pouch is estimated at .5 inches in width
• A wider strap attached to the canvas shoulder bag is estimated to be 1 inch wide. (I measured the two and the narrow strap is one-half the width of the wider one)
• The binocular case is an unknown dimension
• The small leather pouch I estimate to be 6 inches wide. ( I used the narrow leather strap to gauge this dimension)
  
• To the right of Sir John, we see a luggage ticket attached to the canvas bag, the estimated width is 4.5 inches plus the header element of .5 inches.
• In Sir John's hand, a second luggage ticket lies flat on the rectangular carry case.
• The rectangular carry or instrument case is by my estimation and some calculation based on the other objects, 7.5 inches wide by 15 inches deep. ( the width is one-half of the height of the case)
• I looked at the ladies' shoes as a possibility but the image is not sharp and they are at a slight angle which adds complexity and therefore additional room for error. Similarly for Sir John's shoes.
• The buttons on Sir John's cardigan and on the sleeve of his jacket need to be more specific for our purpose.
  
• With great respect to the late Sir John, you note that he has a middle-age spread, this may explain the issue of the SM jacket being difficult to button.

I have used the instrument case as the base known object.

Median Height information, head height: 225 mm. Full height ratio is 1:8. + - 8 mm

JBC Measured full height on photograph + 208 mm ( Allowance made for shoe heel height)

JBC Measured face height = 15 mm  

The instrument case estimated known object height =15 inches or 381mm The object measured height on the photograph = 45 mm. Ratio 1:8.5. 

Using the instrument case example, JBC full height = 208mm X 8.5 = 1768 mm or 5 Feet 9.5 inches +/- 1 inch.