Scientists reconstructed the face of a 2,000-year-old mummy

This is the face of an 18- to 25-year-old woman who lived2,000 years ago, according to a team of Australian scientists.Researchers at the University of Melbourne used modern technology to recreate the face of the woman they named Meritamun, ScienceAlert reports. The craziest part: The groundbreaking project began totally by accident,when a university employee found a mummified head in the school's basement.During a recent audit of theuniversity's archaeological collection, that employee happened upon a small sampling of mummified remains ' including acomplete head, still encased in linen wrappings.No ones knows exactly how it ended up in the school's medical building, butit may have been acquired by a archaeologist-turned-anatomy professor who taught there in the 1930s, according to a report from the school.The researchers were worried that the skull wasrotting from the inside ' but they didn't want to risk further damage to the specimen by removing its wrappings. Instead, theyopted for anon-invasive CT scan, which revealed that the skull wasremarkably well preserved.Next, theteamfed the CTscanimages into a 3D printer. After 140hours of printing, they were left with a perfect replica of the original skull.That's when theycalled inDr. Janet Davey, a forensic Egyptologist from Monash University, who usedclues in the bone structure (smalljaw, narrow mouth, rounder eye sockets) to determine that the skull belonged to a woman, not a man.Finally, pro forensic sculptor Jennifer Mann was recruitedto recreate the mummy's face withclayusing a methodology that involves approximating key tissue depths and measurements throughoutthe skull. The mummy'shair was then based off astyle worn by an Egyptian woman, Lady Rai, who lived around 1570-1530 BCE and whose mummified body is now in the Egypt Museum in Cairo.You can see the steps of the sculpting process in this video from the research team:The transformation is striking.ScienceAlert notes that the findings haven't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, so the scanning and sculpting methods haven't been subject to scrutiny by other scientists.For now,the University of Melbourne team is still busy studying theskull. They're currently using both the original head and the 3D-printed model to investigatehow the woman died, what kinds of food she ate, and how old she really is'the skull is currentlyawaiting radiocarbon dating, which will give amoreaccurate reading ofits age.There's a possibilityMeritamunmay have lived as long ago at 1500 BCE."It is incredible that her skull is in such good condition after all this time," Mann told the University of Melbourne. "It is really poignant work and extremely important for finally identifying these people who would otherwise have remained unknown."Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Researchers say King Tut had a dagger made from space rock
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