Death Masks of Four Colombian Mummies Digitally Removed, Revealing Faces for First Time

Muisca mummy successful the Gold Museum, Bogotá. Credit: Tisquesusa / CC BY 4.0

The faces of 4 past individuals buried successful the Colombian Andes person been revealed for the archetypal clip aft researchers digitally removed the decease masks from their mummies and reconstructed their features utilizing precocious imaging technology.

The mummies, believed to beryllium from pre-Hispanic communities successful Colombia’s Eastern Cordillera, were preserved with stylized masks made of resin, clay, wax and maize.

Though this burial contented is uncommon successful Colombia, akin customs were communal successful different pre-Columbian cultures crossed South America.

All 4 sets of remains—those of a child, an older pistillate and 2 young big men—were recovered from looted burial sites, leaving archaeologists with constricted discourse astir their archetypal resting places.

Radiocarbon investigation dated the individuals to betwixt 1216 and 1797. Despite the harm to their masks, including breached sections and missing facial parts, researchers were capable to digitally abstracted the masks from the skulls to reconstruct their appearances.

The results were unveiled connected Aug. 14 during the 11th World Congress connected Mummy Studies held successful Peru.

CT scans uncover details beneath damaged masks

Using CT scans, the probe squad generated 3D models of the skulls, allowing them to virtually peel distant the materials covering the faces.

Jessica Liu, task manager astatine Face Lab astatine Liverpool John Moores University successful the U.K., said this process gave researchers a wide presumption of the skeletal structure beneath the masks.

Specialized bundle and a haptic stylus were past utilized to rebuild the brushed tissue, abdominous and musculus connected each skull, a method Liu compared to integer sculpting.

“The masks are of bonzer craftsmanship and, truthful far, are the lone ones known successful Colombia. We anticipation that revealing the faces of these indigenous radical for the archetypal clip volition summation involvement successful these unthinkable civilizations,” stated Dr. Felipe Cárdenas-Arroyo of the Colombian Academy of History.

For the 2 antheral mummies, mean facial insubstantial extent information from modern Colombian men helped signifier the reconstructions.

In the lack of akin information for women and children, researchers relied connected anatomical references to exemplary the older woman’s and the child’s features. Additional abdominous was added to soma retired the child’s face.

To find the chemoreceptor structure, measurements were taken straight from the skull bones. Researchers selected the closest-fitting chemoreceptor signifier from a integer database. Hair, skin, and oculus colour were chosen to bespeak emblematic traits of the region, and each look was presented with a neutral expression.

Facial texture enactment highlights limits of accuracy

Adding texture—like wrinkles, freckles and pores—proved the astir challenging step, according to Liu.

She noted that without knowing whether the individuals had scars, tattoos, oregon variations successful tegument tone, the last textures were based connected generalized accusation alternatively than nonstop details.

Liu emphasized that these reconstructions are approximations based connected radical data, and not nonstop likenesses. While the enactment reveals what these radical whitethorn person looked like, she stressed that nary idiosyncratic is ever genuinely average.