They recreate the face of an Egyptian pharaoh 3,500 years after his brutal murder

Published:

Jun 4, 2024 17:53 GMT

Thanks to the mummified remains found in 1886, it had already been determined that ‘The Brave One’ had a small, elongated head, as well as black, fine, curly hair.

An archaeologist from Flinders University in Australia, together with a 3D designer from the Mensa gifted association in Brazil, reconstructed the face of the Egyptian pharaoh Seqenenra Taa II, known as ‘The Brave One’ of the 17th Dynasty, who ruled briefly during the occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos.

The images, published last week in OrtogOnLineMag magazine, they are part of a independent work of facial approximation, based on previously published data and research on the subject.

The experts managed to make a forensic facial reconstruction of the pharaoh, both his face in life and his ‘post-mortem’ state, as well as the position of the objects that caused the injuries to his skull that led to his death approximately 3,500 years ago.

The face of ‘The Brave One’

For the reconstruction, we used CT scans and x-rays of the shattered skull of Seqenenra Taa, which had been found in 1886 by the French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, in the complex of funerary temples and tombs of Deir el Bahari, located on the west bank of the Nile River.

The digitized remains were filled in with the face of another individual that had been previously digitized, modified until it matches the face of the pharaoh, in a process called anatomical deformation.

Thanks to the mummified remains found, it had already been determined that ‘The Brave One’ was slender, with a small and elongated head, and black hair, fine and curly, with a high forehead, straight and wide nose, data with which his digital profile could be recreated.

However, the skin color, the shape of the eyes, eyelashes and eyebrows are unknown, so it was framed in a subjective approach and the Egyptian appearance was chosen according to the artistic parameters of the time, which may not necessarily reflect the facts.

Later, digital wounds were added to the right eyebrow to match those of the pharaoh, and with the help of digital skulls with exposed brains, it was possible to determine what type of ax he used. They would have killed the pharaoh. The images revealed that one of the wounds penetrated his brain.

Finally, for the ‘post-mortem’ images, the team left the lips slightly open and the tongue between the teeth, as well as some wounds and facial deformities that would have been caused during the brutal murder.