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King Tut unmasked with high-tech help Monday, September 30, 2002 Posted: 4:37 PM EDT (2037 GMT) For picture see: http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/09/30/king.tut.reut/index.html Scientists and special-effects experts teamed up to recreate this face, which they call the closest image yet of King Tutankhamen. LONDON (Reuters) - A high-tech facial reconstruction has shed new light on the looks of King Tutankhamen, the teenage king of ancient Egypt immortalized for nearly a century by his golden death mask. Scientists and special effects artists in Britain and New Zealand used digital techniques applied in crime investigations to fashion a fiberglass model they say provides the closest possible likeness of the pharaoh's looks. The cast of Tutankhamen's head, which went on display for four weeks at London's Science Museum on Monday, bears little resemblance to his golden death mask. Unlike the famous face of the slight, heavy-lipped youth framed in a pharaoh's headdress, the model shows a wide-faced young man with high cheekbones, smaller eyes and a heavy brow. "I think people will be surprised it's quite a different looking face. But it's quite realistic given the technology used," said a Science Museum spokeswoman. The reconstruction team was forced to use X-rays taken in 1968 for its impression of the 18-year-old's looks because the mummified head of Tutankhamen was too dried and sunken to give life-like dimensions, she said. Robin Richards, a facial rebuilding expert from University College London, scanned the features of people of the same age, sex, build and ethnic group as Tutankhamen to create an approximation of skin type, which was wrapped onto the 3D digital skull. New Zealand special effects artists fleshed out the skull with eye color and skin pigment, and sculptors then created the finished product out of clay, casting it finally in fiberglass. The tomb of King Tutankhamen, a boy king who ruled Egypt in the 14th century B.C. and died mysteriously at a young age, was discovered by British archeologist Howard Carter in 1922. It was packed with artifacts that took almost 10 years to remove from the site. |