Video Source: The University of Melbourne
By Andrew Trounson | University of Melbourne
Reconstructed from a mummified head dating back at least two millennia, the fine-featured ancient Egyptian face looks out from an artist’s studio in the forested hills of rural Victoria.
Ancient Egypt has fascinated everyone from conquerors like Alexander the Great and Napoleon to movie directors chasing cursed mummies and lost treasures. That same fascination is now driving unique research and teaching collaboration to test the limits of technology and learn all we can about an ancient Egyptian whose head has been preserved, largely unknown, for almost 100 years at the University of Melbourne.
It is a multi-disciplinary project with the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences that combines medical research, forensic science, computerized tomographic (CT) scanning, 3D printing, Egyptology and art. The team has already produced a reconstruction of the head of an 18 to a 25-year-old woman who lived at least 2000 years ago that they named Meritamun, which means beloved of the god Amun. But her serene face is only the start of a journey to answer questions about how she may have died, what diseases she had, when she lived, where she was from, and even what she ate.
“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 who teaches anatomy at the University’s Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience.
“This way she can become much more than a fascinating object to be put on display. Through her, students will be able to learn how to diagnose pathology marked on our anatomy, and learn how whole population groups can be affected by the environments in which they live.”
