King Tutankhamun’s Face Reconstructed In 3D After More Than 3,000 Years

The face of King Tutankhamun has been awakened from the tomb after 3,300 years, with scientists reconstructing the image of the young pharaoh based on the mummy’s facial structure.

Cícero Moraes, the project’s lead author and a 3D designer specializing in digital facial reconstructions, says the person staring back is “a young man with a delicate face.” He tells the Daily Mail that his team sees “a young student,” instead of a political figure racked with responsibilities involving an entire nation.

The image humanizes the historical figure, who was elevated to deity status by his people when he was crowned king at the young age of only nine.

Tutankhamun died when he was around 19 years old, putting an end to his short reign.

Still, he became the most famous pharaoh of all time after British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered his tomb, KV62, in November 1922 and found it to be surrounded by heaps of riches.

Moraes and his international team, who hail from Australia, Italy, and Brazil, did not have direct access to King Tut’s skull. However, they had plenty of data and images from previous studies to work from, including digital models and photos of the mummified king. The researchers recently published their work in the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology.

Drawing from previous tomography scans that revealed the position of his eyeballs, size of his lips, nose structure, and ear height, the study co-authors—including Francesco Galassi, Elena Varotto, Thiago Beaini, and Michael Habic—have generated the 3D profile of Tutankhamun.

The pharaoh’s tomb is the only known one to be fully intact, allowing scientists of the future to find out more about his life through advanced technology.

Moraes’s team is convinced that the models bear “good compatibility” with the king’s actual face, as well as closely match a reconstruction previously created by French researchers.

[via The Independent and New York Post, images by Cícero Moraes et al and featured with permission]