Boy-King With Chubby Cheeks

Using a skull shape determined by hundreds of recent CT scans, three groups of researchers have independently produced busts showing what Egypt’s King Tutankhamen probably looked like on the day of his death about 3,300 years ago.

The three images show the 19-year-old boy-king as a rather delicate young man with chubby cheeks, an unusually shaped head and a receding chin.

“In my opinion, the shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamen as a child, where he is shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom,” said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The efforts show that the science and techniques of forensic reconstruction can be a useful tool for constructing the likenesses of people who lived long ago, he said.

The work was based on sophisticated CT scans of the mummy taken Jan. 5 in his tomb at Luxor in the Valley of the Kings. CT scanning, typically used for medical diagnoses, can be used to produce three-dimensional images.

Those scans showed that Tut was a healthy, well-fed young man at the time of his death and yielded no evidence of foul play.

Some archeologists had speculated that Tut was killed by a blow to the head, possibly by Aye, the commoner who ruled Egypt as regent while Tut was growing up. The scans did show that one leg had apparently been fractured shortly before his death, and it is possible that death resulted from an infection or a fat embolism caused by the break.

The National Geographic Society arranged for plastic skulls to be produced, based on 1,700 CT scans of Tut’s head, and provided one each to forensic anthropologist Jean-Noel Vignal of the Centre Technique de la Gendarmerie Nationale in Paris and anthropologist Susan Anton of New York University. Vignal was told the skull was Tut’s; Anton was not.

Egyptian researchers created their own skull.

Each of the three groups then used conventional techniques to build up layers of muscle, fat and skin based on the racial characteristics exhibited by the skull.

The French then went one step further. Anthropological sculptor Elisabeth Daynes of Paris made a plaster mold of the clay sculpture and used it to produce a silicone cast. She inserted glass eyes, meticulously implanted hair and eyelashes, and added jewelry and makeup appropriate for the period. Skin tone was based on the average shade of modern-day Egyptians.

The three representations are similar overall, although the Egyptian formulation has a stronger chin. The bridge of the nose and the ears differ because those cannot be accurately determined from the skull.

“In my opinion, as a scholar, the Egyptian reconstruction looks the most Egyptian, and the French and American versions have more unique personalities,” Hawass said.

The reconstructions will be part of the exhibit of Tut artifacts that is coming to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on June 16.

Hawass said his team was obtaining CT scans of all of Egypt’s royal mummies. When those mummies are displayed in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization now under construction in Old Cairo, each will be accompanied by a similar reconstruction.