‘Led Zeppelin IV’ Cover Figure Finally Identified

Led Zeppelin IV celebrates its 52nd anniversary today (Nov. 8). How appropriate that there's some significant Zeppelin news about the mysterious man on the cover of the iconic LP? Or, shall we say, mysterious no more.

Multiple outlets -- including The New York Times and BBC News -- report a researcher came across the original photo of the man carrying a large amount of sticks on his back.

Brian Edwards from the University of the West of England (UWE) is the researcher in question. He said he was looking through a photo album for another project. When he saw the photo, he instantly recognized it.

So, who is the mystery man on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV? Edwards determined the man to be Lot Long, a 69-year-old from Wiltshire, England, who made thatched roofs. The photo, itself, was taken during the 1890s. Edwards then determined from an inscription on the album's first page the photographer of the iconic photo was Ernest Howard Farmer.

This leads to an obvious question: How did Led Zeppelin even find this Victorian-era photo? The story has always been that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page found a colorized version of the photo in an antique shop in a small village west of London.

So, how did a colorized photo of Lot Long carrying sticks end up in an antique shop? Edwards noted that Farmer, the photographer, was also a teacher. He believes it's possible Edwards used the photo with his students to teach them colonizing techniques. Of course, this is only a theory.

As for the original photo of Lot Long, it will be on display in the Wiltshire Museum. Additionally, other photos taken by Farmer from the aforementioned album will be on display, too. The Wiltshire Museum states on their website, "Through the exhibition, we will show how Farmer captured the spirit of people, villages and landscapes of Wiltshire and Dorset that were so much of a contrast to his life in London. It is fascinating to see how this theme of rural and urban contrasts was developed by Led Zeppelin and became the focus for this iconic album cover 70 years later."

Led Zeppelin and their catalog as a whole have become more beloved and revered with time as they've been passed down through generations and become standards for which future bands are measured.

So, how do you honor one of the greatest, most influential bands of all time? Hunker down with a fifth of Jack Daniel's, a 2-liter of Coke and dive headfirst into the "Zep-a-Thon." Dubbed so by Jack Black when the band received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, the "Zep-a-Thon" is a musical binge session where you listen to all of Zeppelin's eight studio albums (plus the 1982 compilation album Coda) in one sitting.

"Led Zeppelin: The greatest rock and roll band of all time," said Black. "Better than The Beatles, better than the Stones, even better than Tenacious D."

Black continued, "If you don't agree with me, it's because you never did the 'Zeppelin Marathon.' The 'Zep-a-Thon' is when you sit your ass down and listen to all nine Zep albums in a row ... [It's] the thing every true fan must do at least once in their lifetime. The pilgrimage to heavy metal Mecca."

For the author, this binge wasn't all for pleasure, even though it was oddly fulfilling. The purpose of doing this was for research in order to rank all 92 original Zeppelin tracks.

Exhausting? Yes. A bit much? Maybe, but crazier things have likely been committed in the name of Zeppelin throughout the past five decades. We're positive a simple Google search will yield many things that prove this statement correct. However, we're almost too afraid even to find out what those things are.

Where do your favorite Zeppelin tracks rank? Scroll through the gallery below to find out!

Additional song descriptions by Brian Ives.