A photoshop artist has reconstructed the face of Queen Tiye, the grandmother of King Tut, using her 3,400-year-old mummified remains.
The artist used the technology to overlay features such as eyes, a nose and mouth onto the image, fitting them into her remarkably-preserved bone structure.
They then added hair, eyebrows, eyelashes and even freckles, bringing the corpse’s face to life.
The final result was a beautiful woman with dark, flowing hair, large brown eyes, a heart-shaped mouth and dark complexion.
Queen Tiye was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned from 1390–53 BCE, and lived from 1398 BC until 1338BC.
She was the mother of Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten, and remained a prominent figure of Egyptian royalty even after he ascended the throne.
Akhenaton went on to father Tutankhamun, or King Tut, the boy king who ruled from 1332 to 1323 BC.
He became Pharaoh when he was just eight or nine years old, and is famous today because his is the most intact royal Egyptian tomb ever found.
Queen Tiye’s mummy was discovered in 1898 in the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings, but DNA analysis confirmed her identity until 2010.
The Photoshop Surgeon, a digital artist who performs ‘dramatic enhancements and radical transformations to photos,’ revealed what the face of King Tut’s grandmother Queen Tiye may have looked like using an image of her remains.
The video shows the artist working with Photoshop, which displayed a picture of Queen Tiye’s mummified face.
They begin by placing eyes in the sunken eye sockets, blending the skin around the eye lids, and then they moved on to her nose that was carefully added to fit the bone left behind.
The artist added long, curly brown hair that fit at the hairline on her skull and filled in the brow bone with little pieces of hair.
They also added more skin to Queen Tiye’s face, creating a plumped look as she may have once appeared.
The artist also included her mummified hand that laid on her chest, but put life back into it, showing wrinkles around the knuckles and nails at her finger tips.
Queen Tiye was the daughter of Yuya, commander of the Egyptian chariotry, and an Egyptian woman named Thuya. She did not have royal blood, but despite this, her husband favored her among his many wives and often involved her in state affairs.
Her name even appeared with the king’s on official documents.
Queen Tiye’s remains were discovered in 1898 by French archeologist Victor Loret, but it would be another century before experts realized who they belonged to.
Loret discovered two female mummies among several buried inside the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of Kings – the burial site of almost all the Pharaohs of the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties.
Before they were identified, these mummies were dubbed ‘The Elder Lady’ and ‘The Younger Lady.’
Initially, experts believed ‘The Elder Lady’ might have been Queen Nefertiti, who ruled during the 18th dynasty as the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten – Queen Tiye’s son.
But a lock of hair found in a small coffin bearing an inscription naming Queen Tiye proved to be a near-perfect match to the hair of ‘The Elder Lady.’
And in 2010, DNA analysis confirmed that the remains belonged to the daughter of Yuya and Thuya – Queen Tiye’s parents.
Queen Tiye ldied sometime between the ages of 40 and 60.
Scientists have also reconstructed the faces of King Tut and his father Pharaoh Akhenaten, showing they had similar features.
Scientists used a skull discovered in the Valley of the Kings nearly 100 years ago to piece together the look of Pharaoh Akhenaten who ruled from 1353BC to 1335 BC.
The digital image shows a man in his early 20s with a long jaw and piercing eyes, along with a skull shape and a pointy nose that looks similar to that of King Tut.
The digital image of the Akhenaten was created by the Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology, Bioarchaeology Research Center (FAPAB) in Sicily, which used a skull from a mummy discovered in 1907.
Akhenaten married one of his sisters who gave birth to their son, but as a result of the incestuous relationship, Tutankhamen was born with numerous health issues that experts believe led to an early death.
And a reconstruction of his face and body showed the world a glimpse of what ailments he may have endured.
King Tut had buck teeth, a club foot and girlish hips, according to the most detailed examination ever of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s remains.
And rather than being a boy king with a love of chariot racing, Tut relied on walking sticks to get around during his rule in the 14th century BC, researchers said.
A ‘virtual autopsy’, composed of more than 2,000 computer scans, was carried out in tandem with a genetic analysis of Tutankhamun’s family, which supports evidence that his parents were brother and sister.
The scientists believe that this left him with physical impairments triggered by hormonal imbalances. And his family history could also have led to his premature death in his late teens.
