The first CT scan facial reconstructions of King Tutankhamun's mummy have produced images strikingly similar to the boy pharaoh's ancient portraits, with one model showing a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and his family's characteristic overbite.
That model, a photo of which was released on Tuesday, bears a strong resemblance to the gold mask of King Tut found in his tomb in 1922 by the British excavation led by Howard Carter.
The beardless youth depicted in the model has soft features, a sloping nose and a weak chin -- and the overbite, which archaeologist have long believed was a trait shared by other kings in Tut's 18th dynasty. His eyes are highlighted by thick eyeliner.
Three teams of forensic artists and scientists -- from France, the US and Egypt -- each built a model of the boy pharaoh's face based on some 1,700 high-resolution photos from CT scans of his mummy to reveal what he looked like the day he died nearly 3,300 years ago.
The CT scans -- the first done on an Egyptian mummy -- have suggested King Tut was a healthy, yet slightly built 19-year-old, standing 1.68m tall at the time of his death.
The three teams created their reconstructions separately -- the Americans and French working from a plastic skull, the Egyptians working directly from the CT scans, which could distinguish different densities of soft tissue and bone.
The French and Egyptians knew they were recreating King Tut, but the Americans were not even told where the skull was from and correctly identified it as a Caucasoid North African, the council said.
"The results of the three teams were identical or very similar in the basic shape of the face, the size, shape and setting of the eyes, and the proportion of the skull," Hawass said.
The scans were carried out in January in the Valley of the Kings, where Tut's leathery mummy was briefly removed from its tomb and placed into a portable CT scanner. The tests did not resolve the mystery of the death of King Tut, who came to power at age 9. They were able to dismiss a long-held theory that Tut, who died around 1323BC, was murdered by a blow to his skull or killed in an accident that crushed his chest.
It raised a new possibility for the cause of death: Some experts on the scanning team said it appeared Tut broke his left thigh severely -- puncturing his skin -- just days before his death, and the break could have caused an infection.
A US museum tour a quarter-century ago of Tut's treasures drew more than 8 million people. A smaller number of treasures -- minus Tut's famous gold mask -- will again go on display in the US starting June 16 in Los Angeles, after touring Germany and Switzerland.
The decision to allow the exhibit was a reversal of an Egyptian policy set in the 1980s that confined most of the objects to Egypt, after several pieces were damaged on international tour. Hawass is leading a five-year project to scan all of Egypt's known mummies -- including mummies now at the Cairo Museum.
"For the first time, we will make these dead mummies come alive," Hawass said.
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