A woman in her 40s, curly hair. Scientists have reconstructed the face of the mysterious "Gilded Lady" mummy

Inna Vasilyuk News02.09.2024 12:35

Computer diagnostics revealed that the woman had curly hair and thin facial features. Source: Cicero Moraes

Scientists have reconstructed the face of a mysterious mummy who lived in Egypt 1500 years ago and was known as the "Gilded Lady" due to her golden headdress. After conducting a CT scan scientists were able to find out that the Egyptian woman had curly hair, and she died at the age of 40 years.

It also became known that the "Gilded Lady" suffered from tuberculosis. Interestingly, there were no hieroglyphics on the mummy, revealing her name, writes DailyMail.

A woman in her 40s, curly hair. Scientists have reconstructed the face of the mysterious ''Gilded Lady'' mummy

To preserve the remains of a recovered Egyptian mummy from decay, it was never unwrapped. But still, scientists decided to do a CT scan to find out details about the body of the deceased.

The lead author of the study, Cicero Moraes, said the reconstruction was possible because the mummy was well preserved. "The structure is very well preserved, in its original state of discovery, with no deployment of the mummy. Something that attracts attention is the presence of short curly hair, which can be seen in the tomographic reconstruction," the scientist said.

The researchers first made a CT-based reconstruction of the skull and then corrected the position of the jaw. "The skull allows us to design structures such as the nose, ears, eye position, lip borders and others using data obtained during CT scans of living people. In addition, we use measurements made with ultrasound, also on living people, to determine the thickness of soft tissue in different areas of the skull," Cicero told Moraes.

Because she originated from Roman-occupied Egypt, tissue thickness data was used for modern European women between the ages of 40 and 49.

The resulting face was blended with another face created through a process called anatomical deformation. "Here we customize the virtual donor's face and skull to match the parameters of the Gilded Lady, resulting in a structurally compatible face. At the end, we compare all the data by interpolating the projections to create the final face," added the lead author of the study.

The team created two versions of the face: one unbiased in grayscale to avoid judgments about skin tone.

Another adds more artistic elements, breathing life in with color and hairstyles.

In both cases, they were helped by the unusual preservation of short curly hair, which revealed another aspect of the living woman's appearance. "It's a delicate, youthful face. In some ways it reminds me of my mother-in-law! I showed it to some family members during the process and they all agreed," Cicero said with a chuckle.

The CT scan also revealed that the living woman had a slight overbite. And they also found lumps of resin, probably inserted during mummification to improve the odor.