“Looking at him, we see more of a young student than a politician full of responsibilities, which makes the historical figure even more interesting,” said Cicero Moraes, co-author of the study.
An international group of scientists used a digital model of King Tutankhamun’s mummified skull to reconstruct his face. The 3D model shows how he was the ruler of ancient Egypt in his youth, as he died an early death at the age of 19.
Their work offers a novel and original facial reconstruction of the pharaoh, also based on data published in the biomedical and Egyptological literature. For the reconstruction, the ‘software’ Blender 3D was used, whose OrtogOnBlender extension allowed to reproduce a refined recreation of the soft tissues.
“Looking at him, we see more of a young student than a politician full of responsibilities, which makes the historical figure even more interesting,” said Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes, co-author of the study.
The scientists used anthropometric data and measurements of the pharaoh’s skull obtained in previous studies as the basis for modeling. From these parameters, they recreated the size of the lips, the position of the eyeballs, the height of the ears, and the size of the nose. A computer model made from the results of CT scans of a large number of living people transformed the ‘reference skull’ into the programmed proportions.
Subsequently, the researchers moved on to soft tissue modeling. As a basis, they used data on the thickness of soft tissue at various points in human skulls, obtained from analysis of the head structure of modern Egyptians. To give a more human appearance, the researchers complemented the reconstruction by retouching it with subjective parameters: painting the pupils and toning the skin.
Tutankhamen (1341 BC – 1323 BC) ascended the throne at the age of nine and ruled Egypt until his death ten years later. The fame of this ruler is associated with his tomb, discovered almost intact and with numerous valuable artifacts inside in 1922 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter.
Source: RT
