Amazing What Technology Can Do – Facial Reconstruction

Courtesy: Nerlich AG, et al. PLOS One 2020

In Greco-Roman times, mummy portraits were all the rage!  These painted portraits were placed over the embalmed face, and since the late 1880s, over 1000 portraits have been discovered. Sadly, only about 10% are still attached to the mummy.

One such mummy (and his portrait) is currently housed in the Egyptian Museum Munich, Germany.  Researchers decided to use a CT scanner to upload a digital picture of the boy’s skull and then went on to reconstruct the face … just to see how accurate the painted portrait was.  While there are some differences, overall the likeness is pretty amazing.  So I guess that with this technology, researches can scan the skulls of other mummies, reconstruct their faces, and then see if any of the other portraits are a match.

It is definitely worth using the links below to see the images and read more about this.

Source: The infant mummy’s face—Paleoradiological investigation and comparison between facial reconstruction and mummy portrait of a Roman-period Egyptian child

Source: Facial reconstruction reveals Egyptian ‘mummy portrait’ was accurate except for one detail

Source: Face of an Egyptian boy who died THOUSANDS of years ago is reconstructed using a CT scanner and ‘mummy portrait’ on top of his embalmed face