Ancient Egyptian Man
Researchers from Brazil, used digital images to piece together the face of an Ancient Egyptian man who lived 35,000 years ago.
Moacir Elias Santos, an archaeologist, and Ccero Moraes, a 3D artist, used the skeleton of a man found at an Egyptian archaeological site to make a digital copy of the man.
The picture depicts a facial likeness to the 35,000-year-old fossil skull of Nazlet Khater 2, which was found in the Nile Valley of Egypt in 1980.
The bones belonged to a man of African descent who was between 17 and 29 years old when he died, according to more anthropological research. The data indicates that he had a height of more than five feet, three inches.Face approximation was used, which lets archaeologists figure out what a person’s face looked like based on their bones.
“A few years ago, we were already working on a series of approximations related to human evolution, with the best-known fossil replicas,” Moacir Santos, archaeologist at the Ciro Flamarion Cardoso Archaeology Museum in Ponta Grossa, Brazil told CNN. “The videos were converted into photos and were used for the elaboration of the photogrammetry of the skull, which shaped the study.”
After looking at the man’s bones at the National Museum of Egyptian Culture in Cairo, Santos and Moraes used photogrammetry to get 3D information from pictures. Professionals have used this method for decades to piece together our historical development.In February, a 3D model of a Nabataean woman was shown. It was made from bones that were found in 2015 in a tomb in Hegra, Saudi Arabia, which is a 2,000-year-old archaeological site.
“Using the skulls of living people in addition to work carried out in the forensic field… the probability that the image resembles what NK2 looked like is significantly high,” Moraes, the designer, told CNN.
Santos and Moraes want their findings to be useful for future studies of human evolution by archeologists. Last month, they published their findings in the Brazilian journal OrtogOnline. Now, they want to show the reconstruction of the face at a future exhibition.
“The fact that this individual is over 30,000 years old makes it important for understanding human evolution,” said Santos.
Moraes emphasized that while the man’s jaw is stronger than that of modern humans today, “35,000 (years ago) we are almost the same.”
“If a man of that time could walk down the street (today), people would not see any difference from others,” he said.
Also Read: Ancient Egypt: A Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
