A team from Germany and Austria successfully reconstructed a "mummy portrait" that was found fixed on an ancient Egyptian casket that belonged to a young boy who died between 50 BC and 100 AD.
Using a CT scanner, the team uploaded a virtual construction of the child's skull, still inside the burial, to create a 3D digital reconstruction of his face, the Daily Mail reported.
The portrait shows the young boy with curly hair that has been braided into two strands that run along the edge of his forehead and back behind the ears.
Using ultrasound scans of soft tissue in living individuals close to the boy's age, about three to eight years old, the team was able to reconstruct the look of his face.
They were able to determine the boy's age at death after analyzing the bones and tooth inside the bandages, along with cause of death.
The facial reconstruction was 'very similar' to the portrait, as the dimensions of the forehead to the eye line, and the distance from the nose to the mouth 'were exactly the same between portrait and reconstruction,' the researchers wrote in the study.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, notes that more than 1,000 mummy portraits have been uncovered since they first discovered in 1887.
