On 14 August, at the 11th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Peru, researchers from the Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University unveiled the first virtual reconstructions of four masked mummies from the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes. Computed-tomography scans let the team view the faces beneath the masks without disturbing the remains.
The group reconstructed a child of about six or seven years old, a woman in her 60s, and two young men. Each individual had been buried with a tight mask that sealed the face and jaw. Although the coverings later lost their noses and lower sections, rows of ornamental beads that once framed the eyes survived, offering reference points for the digital models.
CT data produced hundreds of two-dimensional slices that the Face Lab converted into three-dimensional skulls. Using a stylus and specialized software, the researchers then layered muscles, fat, and skin onto the bone. Radiocarbon dating placed the four lives between 1216 and 1797 CE, all from pre-Hispanic communities of the Eastern Cordillera.
The masks, fashioned from resin, clay, wax, and maize, were intended to remain in place, making the dead appear alive. “The masks are of extraordinary workmanship and so far the only ones known to exist in Colombia,” said Felipe Cárdenas-Arroyo of the Academia Colombiana de Historia, according to Vice News.
Project manager Jessica Liu called the procedure “virtual sculpting,” explaining to Live Science that the skull served as the scaffold “to get the tissue to perfectly fit the individual.” She described the work as “part science, part art.” Average facial-tissue thickness data from modern Colombian adults guided the reconstructions of the young men; the team manually adjusted values for the woman and added cheek fat for the child.
Skin, eye, and hair colors followed common traits in present-day Indigenous populations of the region. The software calculated nose dimensions from each skull’s bony structures, and the artists selected the best-fitting option from a digital library. “Texture is always the biggest challenge,” Liu said in Archaeology Magazine. “Just because we simply don’t know how they would present themselves, whether or not they have any facial scarring or tattoos, or if that actually is the skin tone.”
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.