The mystery of the face of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten was revealed for the first time

The face image was reconstructed from a remains known as KV55 discovered in 1907 in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

Statue of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Photo: AFP. The figure of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, possibly the father of King Tutankhamun, has been digitally recreated. The remains were found in 1907 in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt in tomb KV55, not far from Tutankhamun’s tomb. More than a century after the tomb was discovered, genetic analysis indicated the skeleton inside belonged to King Tutankhamun’s biological father. From other clues in the tomb, archaeologists believe that this remains is Akhenaten, a pharaoh who reigned from 1353 to 1335 BC and was the first pharaoh in Egypt to worship monotheism. However, some experts oppose these conclusions. They believe that the true identity of this remains cannot be definitively concluded. Re-identification of the remains took many months by scientists at the Research Center for Forensic Anthropology, Paleontology, and Archeology (FAPAB) in Sicily, Italy. The experts collaborated with Cicero Moraes – a Brazilian 3D forensic artist known for facial reconstruction. Unlike previous iterations of the KV55, the new model removes hair, jewelry, and other makeup to focus on facial features. King Akhenaten’s face has been recreated digitally. Photo: FAPAB . Research Center Akhenaten ascended the throne as Amenhotep IV, which means “Servant of Aten” – an Egyptian sun god. He then began to eliminate the priesthood of serving the gods of Egypt in order to establish a monotheistic creed of Aten, according to the Ohio State University Department of History. Archaeologists found KV55 in the tomb with bricks engraved with the incantation named Akhenaten. Another coffin contains the remains of a woman named Kiya, identified as Akhenaten’s concubine, and round jars containing the mummy’s organs, FAPAB announced on March 10. KV55 was mummified, but the preserved meat decomposed during excavation, leaving only the skeleton. Based on the objects in the tomb and the sex of the skeleton, some archaeologists conclude this person is Akhenaten. However, analysis of teeth and bones revealed that the man was younger than expected. This man died around the age of 26, possibly even between the ages of 19 and 22, while according to records, Akhenaten ruled Egypt for 17 years and had a daughter in the first year of his reign. . Francesco Galassi, director and co-founder of the FAPAB Research Center and an associate professor of archaeology at Flinders University in Australia, said: “Some archaeologists are inclined to suggest that Akhanaten began to reign as a young man. a young man rather than a child. For this reason, many attempts have been made to prove that KV 55 is older than the actual anatomical index.” Other experts suggest that the KV55 could be Akhenaten’s younger brother Smenkhkare, but there is little evidence that such a brother exists, Galassi said. Today, Smenkhkare is often thought to be not a real person, but an identity of Queen Nefertiti, who may have taken this name when she ascended the throne following Akhenaten’s death. Galassi says this will effectively rule out the “little brother” hypothesis for KV55. Genetic analysis indicates that KV55 is the son of Amenhotep III and the father of King Tutankhamun, providing further evidence for the theory that the remains are of King Akhenaten, according to a study published in 2010 in the journal JAMA . This conclusion is not without controversy, however, as the genetic data of Egyptian mummies can be “complicated” because inbreeding within families was a common practice during the Egyptian dynasties. Ancient Egyptian. A FAPAB representative said that a more detailed report on the reconstruction of the KV55’s identity will be published in 2021.