Using 2D and 3D techniques, forensic scientists have reconstructed the face of the world’s first pregnant Egyptian mummy 2,000 years after her death. Known as the “Mysterious Woman,” the mummy was found during an excavation in 1826 and taken from Egypt to Warsaw, Poland.
Researchers believe the woman died at the age of 20, 28 weeks pregnant. Recently, it was discovered that he was possibly suffering from cancer. According to scientists, this may be the first known specimen of mummified humans to contain an unborn baby.
Now experts have used the skull and other body parts to reveal what the woman looked like when she was alive in the 1st century BC.
“Our bones, and particularly the skull, provide a lot of information about a person’s face,” Chantal Milani, an Italian forensic anthropologist and member of the Warsaw Mummies Project, told British tabloid Mirror.
“While it cannot be considered an exact portrait, the skull, like many anatomical parts, is unique and displays a series of shapes and proportions that will appear on the face when finished.”
The “Mysterious Lady”‘s body was found wrapped in cloth and with a rich set of amulets to accompany her in the afterlife.
According to a Facebook post by The Mummy Project Warsaw, “The ritual known as ‘mummification’ is an expression of care given to preserve a person for the afterlife.”
“The face covering the bone structure obeys different anatomical rules, so standard procedures can be applied, for example, to reconstruct it to create the shape of the nose,” explains Chantal.
“The most important element is the reconstruction of soft tissue thickness at various points on the surface of the facial bones. For this we have statistical data from various populations around the world.”
forensic artists
Forensic artist Hew Morrison is one of the experts working on the reconstruction of the mummy’s face. According to him, facial reconstruction is primarily used in forensics to help identify a corpse when the most common identification methods such as fingerprint identification or DNA analysis have proved inconclusive.
“Reconstructing a person’s face from the skull is often considered a last resort when trying to determine who they are. It can also be used in an archaeological and historical context to show what ancient people or famous figures from the past would have looked like in life.” . “
Dr. Wojciech Ejsmond, an archaeologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, said many people consider ancient Egyptian mummies a “curiosity”.
“They tend to forget that they were once living people with their own individual lives, loves and tragedies,” he said. “For the ancient Egyptians, it was very important to preserve similarity to help ensure the survival of a spirit and identity. So, on the one hand, we ‘rehumanize’ scientific data, and on the other hand, it is the wish of these people not to remain anonymous and not forgotten.”
source: Noticias
