Reconstructing the Appearance of a 30,000 Year Old Ancient Egyptian Youth before Pharaohs

Brazilian scientists have reconstructed the face of a young man from ancient Egypt who lived 30,000 years before the first pharaoh.

The young man died about 35,000 years ago in the Nile Valley, where in 1980 his almost intact skeleton was found at the Nazlat Khater 2 site.

Decades later, it is still the only complete human skeleton ever found in Africa since the early Late Stone Age.

Now scientists have reconstructed his features and completed a forensic approximation of his facial features using his skull.

Archaeologist Moasir Santos, who contributed to the new study, said the reconstruction helped bridge the gap between us and the ancients.

The human face in all periods of history has been used to identify a person. In the words of Dr. Santos: “Therefore, the face is a look at yourself.”

He added: “Legitimate face reconstruction is a way to humanize people who are known to the general public only as skeletons. Trying to restore the appearance that a person had in life thousands of years ago is a way to bring him back to the present day, and bring him closer to the public.

The process involves creating a 3D digital model of the skull and then reconstructing the facial layer using the anatomical information of modern humans as a guide. The end result is a facial reconstruction.

Eye color and hairstyle are sometimes lost in the story, but such subjective elements are often added to humanize the subject.

Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes, co-author of Dr. Santos, said studies were done on living organisms to test the effectiveness of the method. Therefore, he was sure that the reconstruction gave a good resemblance to a living person.

“The chance that the face matches the real face is very high,” he added. The skull case was created thanks to the efforts of two authors, both from Brazil.

Dr. Santos said: “The main rounded structure of the face, the skull, is well preserved, although some deformities have occurred.”

Morais noted: “The missing part of the skull can be reconstructed from the other side, which was intact, so we did not encounter great difficulties in carrying out this work. In addition, there are a large number of scientific publications related to the skull, so you can find out sex, age and origin From analyzes carried out over 40 years of research.

The skeleton belonged to a male between the ages of 17 and 20, with some erosion of the skeleton indicating a change in weight over a lifetime, the researchers said.

And the double-sided ax buried next to his body suggested that he might have worked in the Hell Mine.

Source: Mirror