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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:39AM   Printer-friendly

Facial reconstruction reveals Egyptian 'mummy portrait' was accurate except for one detail:

Just after the turn of the first millennium A.D., a young child living in Egypt contracted a deadly illness — most likely pneumonia — and died. His tiny body was prepared for mummification and burial; some of his organs were removed, his remains were wrapped in criss-crossed linen bindings and a portrait of his face was affixed to the front of his mummy.

This so-called "mummy portrait" was part of a popular tradition among some Egyptians in Greco-Roman times, from about the first through the third centuries A.D. But how accurate were these portraits? To find out, a team of scientists in Austria and Germany CT scanned this little boy's body and created a 3D digital reconstruction of his face.

The results show that the portrait was fairly accurate, except for one aspect — the artist made the youngster look older than his 3 or 4 years.

"The portrait shows slightly 'older' traits, which may have been the results of an artistic convention of that time," study lead researcher Andreas Nerlich, the director of the Institute of Pathology at the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen in Germany, told Live Science in an email.

This single portrait, however, doesn't reveal whether it was a common practice for ancient Egyptian artists to make younger people look older in their mummy portraits.

Journal Reference:
Andreas G. Nerlich, et. al. The infant mummy's face—Paleoradiological investigation and comparison between facial reconstruction and mummy portrait of a Roman-period Egyptian child. PLOS ONE. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0238427


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:50AM (7 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:50AM (#1053370) Journal

    Maybe even TutanBiden is a couple years younger than depicted?

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    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:17AM (6 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:17AM (#1053378) Homepage
      He seems to have the mental faculties of a 3-4 year old, so your comment is on point. Tutenkamala will be the one with the smarts in that relationship.
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      • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:44AM (5 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 (12884) on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:44AM (#1053382) Journal

        Don't be so sure. The lockdown just has the Democrats running low on children and adrenochrome. Biden will force everything to reopen so he can get access to more children. That will cure any apparent mental and physical difficulties. It worked for Hillary.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by barbara hudson on Saturday September 19 2020, @01:06PM (4 children)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday September 19 2020, @01:06PM (#1053435) Journal
          Lame fake 2.0 account. Keep it up, assholes. The thought of Trump losing making you desperate?
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          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @02:57PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @02:57PM (#1053503)

            TootinTrump acts like a 2 year old.

          • (Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday September 19 2020, @04:38PM (2 children)

            by srobert (4803) on Saturday September 19 2020, @04:38PM (#1053551)

            The thought of Trump losing making you desperate?

            It's the thought that's making me desperate is that, if our only choices are Trump and Biden, then we're all losers.

            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:29PM (1 child)

              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:29PM (#1053573) Journal

              I suspect most of us feel the same way.

              They should have gone with Sanders/Warren, or Warren/Sanders.

              Would have loved to see Warren take on Trump.

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              • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @12:37AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @12:37AM (#1053749)

                We would love for foreign actors like you to stop meddling in our elections.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:40AM (2 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 (12884) on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:40AM (#1053381) Journal

    Otherwise the pedophile Democrats would keep trying to touch the mummy to extract adrenochrome and would destroy it.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @04:09PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @04:09PM (#1053542)

      Sounds like you have mummy issues.

      • (Score: -1) by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 on Thursday October 01 2020, @07:37PM

        by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 (12884) on Thursday October 01 2020, @07:37PM (#1059570) Journal

        I did, but I am now out of my cocaine binge and regretting the ego fueled trolling.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @12:55PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @12:55PM (#1053432)

    Young people want to look older, old people want to look younger. What else is new?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:15PM (1 child)

      by Bot (3902) on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:15PM (#1053600) Journal

      What else is new? a pneumonia case that is not recorded as covid instead.

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