(ORDO NEWS) — Ramesses II is considered one of the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
Much is known about his life, many statues and frescoes with his image have been preserved, but it is still not entirely clear what the great ruler really looked like.
On statues and drawings of more than 3,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptian sovereign is depicted as a handsome aristocratic man with a round face, a prominent nose and high cheekbones.
His mummy, discovered in 1881, reveals slightly different details.
The face of Ramesses II has been recreated by scientists and artists on the basis of the structure of his skull more than once. And always with different results.
In some versions, Ramesses II has a hooked nose, while others smooth this feature out.
The eyes of the pharaoh are sometimes depicted as small and inconspicuous, and sometimes almost bulging. Yes, and his face itself is sometimes drawn long and thin, and sometimes round and full.
Recently, researchers from the UK teamed up with Egyptian mummies expert and radiology professor Sahar Salim from Cairo University. They sought to render the pharaoh’s face in more detail and precision than ever before.
To do this, the authors of the work used the results of computed tomography, used photographs of the mummy, as well as historical data.
All this made it possible to obtain the most accurate idea of ​​the structure of the skull and bones of the face of Ramses II.
On the face of the mummy, a strong jaw and a wide nasal bone, very high and very pronounced, stand out noticeably, scientists say.
Having determined the general structure of the pharaoh’s face, the researchers moved on to the reconstruction of the muscles and ligaments. For this, software used for criminal reconstruction was used.
The result was an elderly man with a long face, a wide aquiline nose, close-set eyes, thick gray eyebrows and a wide mouth with a thin upper lip.
The researchers chose skin color based on modern ideas about what typical Egyptians of that time looked like.
But the hair color was chosen taking into account microscopic studies of the remains of the hair of Ramses II and other fair-haired mummies. He once had thick red hair.
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