Scientists construct the ‘real’ faces of three ancient Egyptian mummies
Recommended for Middle Grades
What did ancient Egyptian mummies really look like?
In order to find this out, scientists digitally reconstructed the faces of three men who lived in ancient Egypt more than 2,000 years ago.
Digital reconstructions show the men to be 25 years old. This is based on the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) data extracted from their mummified remains.
The ancient Egyptian mummies came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient Egyptian city. This city is located south of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. Earlier, in 2017, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Tübingen, Germany, had sequenced (reconstructed) the mummies’ DNA. It was the first successful reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian mummy’s genome.
The technology
And now, researchers at a DNA technology company called Parabon NanoLabs have used that genetic data to create 3D models of the mummies’ faces. They did this through a process called forensic DNA phenotyping. This process uses genetic analysis to predict the shape of facial features.
Scientists say that the same processes they used on the ancient Egyptian mummies could also help scientists to recreate faces to identify new bodies.
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