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King Tut's face revealed
11/05/2005 12:33 - (SA)
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| This photo shows a model of King Tutankhamun made by a French team. (AP) |
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Cairo - The first CT scan facial reconstructions of King Tutankhamun's mummy have produced images strikingly similar to the boy pharaoh's ancient portraits, with one model showing a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and a round chin.
That model, a photo of which was released on Tuesday, bears a strong resemblance to the gold mask of King Tut found in his tomb in 1922 by the British excavation led by Howard Carter. The beardless man depicted has soft features and a weak chin, and his eyes are highlighted by thick eyeliner.
Three teams of forensic artists and scientists from France, the United States and Egypt each built a model of the boy pharaoh's face based on some 1 700 high-resolution photos from CT scans of his mummy to reveal what he looked like the day he died nearly 3 300 years ago.
"The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamun as a child where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom," said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Similar results
The CT scans the first done on an Egyptian mummy have suggested King Tut was a healthy, yet slightly built 19-year-old.
The three teams created their reconstructions separately the Americans and French working from a plastic skull, the Egyptians working directly from the CT scans, which could distinguish different densities of soft tissue and bone.
The French and Egyptians knew they were recreating King Tut, but the Americans were not even told where the skull was from and correctly identified it as a Caucasoid North African, the council said in a statement.
"The results of the three teams were identical or very similar in the basic shape of the face, the size, shape and setting of the eyes, and the proportion of the skull," Hawass said.
"The primary differences were in the shape of the end of the nose and ears," he said. The French and American versions had similar noses and chins, though the Egyptian reconstruction had a somewhat different nose and a stronger jaw and chin, the council said.
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