FAFG #003 - Beautiful Horrible

When I first took a close look at this image I was struck by the beautiful colors. It looks like some kind of wild mushroom, or the bud from an exotic plant. But in reality there is nothing beautiful about this object. It is the rusted tip of a bullet recovered from a mass grave. The tip itself is quite tiny... less than 5mm wide (or less than one-fifth of an inch.)

One of the ways that the FAFG forensic lab is able to find such miniscule bullet fragments is by taking x-ray images of the skeleton remains. Every metal fragment that is recovered, no matter how small, is then placed into labelled containers to be photographed along with the skeleton, clothes, and any personal objects belonging to the victim.

Tags: Guatemala, FAFG, Forensic, Anthropology, Photography, bullet, ballistic