Using CT scanning and 3D printing technology, team of researchers and forensic scientists, led by the University of Melbourne, has produced a reconstruction of a 2000-year-old mummified head from Egypt. According to an article published on the university website, the head belongs to an Egyptian woman aged between 18 and 25 years whom the team named Meritamun, meaning “beloved of the god Amun.” It was preserved for almost 100 years in the basement of the university until it became subject of the multi-disciplinary project that combines medical research, forensic science, computerized tomographic (CT) scanning, 3D printing, Egyptology and art. “The idea of the project is to take this relic and, in a sense, bring her back to life by using all the new technology,” says Dr Varsha Pilbrow, a biological anthropologist at the university’s Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience. The team’s main concern was that the head could have decayed from the inside under the bandages; however, scans revealed the skull was in very good condition, allowing for the project to take course. After 140 hours of printing time on a simple 3D printer, the skull used to reconstruct Meritamun’s…
Ancient Egyptian Mummified Head ‘Brought Back to Life’ in Australia
August 23, 2016
