Scientists have reconstructed the face of an ancient Egyptian who lived 30,000 years before the earliest Pharaoh.
The youth died some 35,000 years ago in the Nile Valley, where his skeleton was found virtually intact at the Nazlet Khater 2 site in 1980.
Decades later, it remains the only complete modern human skeleton ever found in Africa from the start of the late Stone Age.
Now scientists have brought his features to life, completing a forensic facial reconstruction of his features using his skull.
Archaeologist Moacir Santos, who co-authored the new study, said the reconstruction helped bridge the chasm between us and the ancients.
‘The human face was, in all periods of history, used for the recognition of individuals. The face is, thus, a look at oneself,’ said Dr Santos.
‘Forensic facial approximations are a way to humanise individuals which the general public only recognises as “skeletons”,’
‘Trying to recover the appearance that an individual had in life thousands of years ago is a way to bring them to the present day, bringing them closer to the public.’
The scientists were ‘very happy’ with the result of this study as facial approximations are excellent science communication tools.
The process involves creating a digitised 3D model of the skull, then rebuilding the face layer by layer, using anatomical information from modern humans as a guide. The end result is an objective recreation of the face.
Eye colour and hairstyle are sometimes lost to history, but subjective elements like these are often added to further humanise the subject.
Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes – Dr Santos’ co-author – said studies had been carried out with living subjects to test the method’s effectiveness.
He was therefore confident that the reconstruction offered a good likeness of the living man.
‘The chance that the face is compatible with the real one is significantly high,’ he said.
The authors, both from Brazil, were assisted in their efforts by the condition of the skull.
‘The main structure for facial approximation, the skull, was well preserved, though some deformations occurred,’ said Dr Santos.
‘The missing part of the skull could be reconstructed from the other side, which was intact, so we didn’t have any major difficulties carrying out this work,’ said Moraes.
‘In addition, there are a large number of scientific publications involving the skull, so it is possible to know the sex, age and ancestry from analyses carried out over 40 years of research,’
According to the researchers, the skeleton belonged to a subadult male, aged 17 to 20 years old, with some wear on the bone structures, indicating weight changing during life.
A double-sided axe buried next to his body, suggested that he could have worked in a chert mine.
‘In general, it is indicated that he died 35,000 years ago before the present,’ said Moraes.
That timeline means the youth lived some 30,000 years before the first Pharaoh, Narmer, who founded the First Dynasty and ruled from approximately 3,100 BC. The duo have now published their study in in the journal OrtogOnLine.
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