US scientists recreate faces of three Egyptian mummies that lived around 2,000 years ago

In a historic development, researchers from a Virginia-based lab have recreated the facial features of not one but three Egyptian mummies over 2,000 years old. As per a report by Live Science, the scientists were able to reconstruct their faces digitally by using the data from their DNA, extracted from the fossils. 

How were the faces recreated?

The scientists, who work at a Reston-based DNA technology company named Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, used the DNA phenotyping technique. According to Live Science, this technique uses the Snapshot method, which predicts ancestry, skin colour and facial features of the desired subject. 

The experts, in this case, discovered that mummies of the three men had a genetic makeup that was more tilted towards humans living in the Middle East or the Mediterranean region rather than the Egyptians. Besides, the technology predicted that the three men had dark coloured eyes and hair, with light brown skin. 

Live Science reported that facial features of the mummies were then outlined using 3D meshes, and heat maps were calculated to differentiate and highlight differences of each face. In an interview with Live Science, Parabon's Director of Bioinformatics, Ellen Greytak said that extracting data from a mummy is challenging as their DNA gets degraded and mixes with bacterial DNA. 

The discovery

As per reports, it was scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Tübingen, Germany, who first reconstructed an ancient Egyptian mummy's genome by sequencing their DNA back in 2017. This hard work of the German scientists then paved the way for Parabon NanoLabs that performed the first comprehensive DNA phenotyping on human DNA.

The mummies were extracted from an ancient Egyptian city called Abusir el-Meleq, which is located on the floodplain south of Cairo. Studies have revealed that the mummies were buried between 1380 B.C. and 425 A.D. and must have been around 25 years of age when they died.

According to Live Science, Greytak believes that this new reconstruction technology will help redesign more faces from mummified remains. Parabon NanoLabs researchers have so far reportedly helped in solving 175 cases using the genetic genealogy.

(IMAGE: TWITTER/@ARCHEOHISTORIES)