Mummies have long served as a powerful symbol of Egypt, embodying the country’s rich history and cultural legacy. The mummies of ancient Egyptian kings and queens hold immense significance for all Egyptians, representing not just their ancestral heritage but also the remarkable achievements of a civilisation that continues to captivate the world.

In 2004, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) launched the Egyptian Mummy Project, founded by renowned archaeologist and former minister of antiquities Zahi Hawass.

This initiative was designed to study the royal mummies using cutting-edge scientific methods, including computed tomography (CT). Under the guidance of professor of radiology Sahar Saleem, the project has examined more than 40 royal mummies of the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BCE).

The scientific findings from these studies have provided invaluable insights into the lives of these royal figures, unveiling vital information about their ages, heights, and health conditions. This has allowed us as researchers to paint a more accurate picture of ancient Egyptian society. More importantly, the project aims to visualise the real faces of these legendary kings and queens, reviving their storied history.

By reconstructing the visages of these historical figures, the Egyptian Mummy Project strengthens the bond between Egyptians and the global community, fostering a deeper appreciation for the enduring legacy of ancient Egypt. This endeavour not only highlights the sophistication of ancient Egyptian civilisation but also invites people worldwide to connect with its remarkable history.

Since its inception in 2004, the Egyptian Mummy Project has made significant strides in the facial reconstruction of several royal ancient Egyptians. Each reconstruction journey starts with the meticulous acquisition of thousands of ultra-thin (0.6 mm) CT slices of the royal mummies. These slices provide a three-dimensional model of the head of the mummy. Using advanced post-processing techniques and modern image-reconstruction software, they can provide detailed insights into the morphological characteristics of the mummies’ faces.

In 2005, Hawass presented three notable facial reconstructions of King Tutankhamun generated by separate teams from Egypt, France, and the US. However, the results of these attempts, which used German and American facial measurements, were not satisfactory to the scientific community.

By creating a CT scan of King Amenhotep I’s mummy, we were able to create a three-dimensional model of the king’s head. The software enables the digital unwrapping of the Pharaohs and recognises the characteristics of the several layers of materials on the mummy’s face, such as the linen bandages that cover his true face.

Using image-reconstruction technologies has allowed the visualisation of delicate face details like hairstyles and ear piercings to be achieved. King Amenhotep I’s mummy revealed a face with a delicate nose and somewhat wavy hair, which are characteristics shared by many modern Egyptians. This work was published in the Frontiers in Medicine Journal in 2021.

In 2022, a collaboration between Saleem and Canadian anthropologist Andrew Nelson and a forensic sculptor, Christian Corbet, led to another attempt at reconstructing Tutankhamun’s visage. The team applied an artificial intelligence module to create a precise 3D model of the skull, which was digitally printed.

Using Egyptian measurements, layers of facial muscles were placed physically in their precise places on the 3D-printed skull to recreate the face of the king.
More recently, in 2023 and 2024, Saleem and a team from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK led by Caroline Wilkinson, a forensic anthropologist, focused their efforts on recreating the face of the powerful king Ramses II at the age of his death, 90 years, as well as in his youth at 45 years old.

Saleem created a digital 3D CT model of the mummy’s head and skull, which Wilkinson then used to build the king’s face using computer software designed for criminal investigations. Saleem provided morphometric features such as a brown skin tone, and wavy henna-dyed hair six cm in length based on a physical inspection of the well-preserved mummy. Watching a great king like Ramses II grow old would give a strong and emotional outlook towards this king who led one of the most important battles of ancient history, the Battle of Kadesh.

Through these scientific endeavours, the Mummy Project continues to illuminate the lives of ancient Egyptian kings, enriching our understanding of their history and cultural legacy.

MISLEADING DEPICTIONS: There has recently been a surge of unscientific attempts to achieve the graphic visualisation of the faces of ancient Egyptians circulating on social-media platforms.

Unfortunately, these portrayals have misrepresented prominent figures in ancient Egypt, most recently king Amenhotep I. These facial visualisation experiments are generated by a flawed methodology used by a Brazilian graphic designer Cicero Moraes.

The primary issue is that these graphic visualisations are based on a limited source of data as they depend on the use of some of the mummy images published on the Internet, including a few images of CT scans from the research of Saleem and Hawass, which of course does not give enough information to make 3D images.

This has resulted in inaccurate measurements on which the designer has built his perception of the king’s face. Furthermore, this flawed reconstruction method has compounded the problem by importing erroneous measurements taken from photographs of a virtual skull of an unrelated living individual, rather than utilising a model based on the actual remains of the mummy.

This graphic method incorporated tissue depth markers and nasal dimensions from individuals of African descent, despite clear evidence that the ancient Egyptians exhibited distinct physical characteristics. As evidenced by the vivid murals and artwork of the era, the ancient Egyptians were depicted with a distinct brown complexion and narrow and pointed noses, in contrast to the broader features and darker skin tones shown for their African counterparts.

We believe that such flawed and ill-conceived approximations of ancient Egyptian people do a disservice to the historical record of these ancient figures and ancient Egyptian civilisation.

Although we give the right to everyone to see and circulate what we have published in scientific journals regarding the CT scan images of the royal mummies, these images cannot be used in such projects to build an imaginary image and then try to give it a scientific character. This is completely unacceptable.

We believe that the facial reconstruction of a mummy is a scientific project that requires multi-disciplinary collaboration. Precise 3D information from CT images, ethnology, anthropology, and archaeology, as well as from forensic specialists and forensic sculptors, are all needed to produce the most accurate face possible.

As the Egyptian Mummy Project continues, it reaffirms the importance of mummies as cultural treasures, reminding us of the intricate tapestry of human history that ties us all together. Through careful scientific exploration, the mummies of ancient Egypt remain a vital symbol of national pride and historical significance, celebrating the achievements of those who came before us.

Nevertheless, one person who lives in South America took the CT scans from our Mummies Project without a permission and used them to show that the kings of the New Kingdom were black.

He first took a skeleton that was found near Nazlet Khater in Sohag and made a phase three reconstruction of it in order to show that the ancient Egyptians were black. He did not disclose the method he had used to analyse this skeleton, which is now on show at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC). It cannot be used for such a project unless a request is sent to the museum authorities, who will then need to give permission.

He even made a reconstruction of the face of king Seqnenre, who died during the war against the Hyksos, with his sons Kamose and Ahmose continuing the fight until they had been expelled from the country. The South American researcher showed the king as having been black and did the same with king Amenhotep I and others.

There is no way that science can reconstruct the colour of a face in this way. This man should not be believed because he has not used scientific methods in his research. Such people are trying to misrepresent our civilisation by saying that the origin of the ancient Egyptians was black.

The movement to give an Afrocentric origin to ancient Egyptian civilisation began with the Senegalese researcher Cheikh Anta Diop in the 1950s, who published his theory that the ancient Egyptians was black Africans. He did not use strong arguments to prove this, but he represented two statues of Tutankhamun and Ramses II as being black, neglecting other statues of both kings. He ignored the fact that the kings of ancient Egypt sometimes commissioned black statues in order to show that they were giving fertility to the “blonde” land of Egypt. Sheikh Anta Diop also claimed that the ancient Egyptian language had an originally African grammar.

The UN cultural agency UNESCO arranged a conference in Paris in the 1970s to discuss this theory and invited many Egyptologists to it. They decided that there was no evidence to support it.

In fact, there are three theories among Egyptologists on the origins of ancient Egypt.

In addition to the theory propounded by Sheikh Anta Diop, which proposes a Sub-Saharan African origin, there is also a second theory that suggests that the ancient Egyptians were a mix of Asiatic and Hamitic peoples. This theory posits that migration from Asia and Africa led to the settlement of the River Nile, where these groups built the Egyptian civilisation.

Proponents of this theory claim that Asiatic people settled in the Nile Delta, and if we observe the features of the people living there today, they exhibit Asiatic characteristics. In contrast, people in Upper Egypt display Hamitic traits, though they are not black. Additionally, this theory notes similarities between the grammar and structure of the ancient Egyptian language and the Arabic language.

The third theory, which I personally believe, was proposed by the British archaeologist Sir William Flinders Petrie, the father of Egyptology. After conducting an analysis of the people buried in a large cemetery at Naqada in Upper Egypt, Petrie concluded that the ancient Egyptians were native to Egypt. He argued that there were no significant migrations from Asia or Africa that contributed to the development of Egyptian civilisation.

Petrie questioned why, if people had migrated from these regions, they had not themselves established civilisations similar to that of Egypt. He also pointed out that, despite the more favourable climates in some African countries, their art styles are entirely different from the distinct artistic concepts found in Egypt.

UNIQUE CHARACTER: The ancient Egyptians were deeply aware of the duality of their land, distinguishing between “Kmt” (the fertile black soil) and “Dsr” (the arid red desert) and representing life and death and good and evil.

They viewed life as an eternal cycle, with natural events like the rising and setting of the sun, floods, and droughts reflecting this constant balance. Their belief in eternal life shaped their perspective on death, seeing it as a transition rather than an end.

Agriculture, sustained by the annual flooding of the Nile, was the foundation of life in Egypt, not only providing food but also shaping their religious worldview. The Egyptians celebrated the rejuvenation of the land during the flood season with festivals focused on rebirth. The Nile also played a vital role in providing fresh water, fish, and facilitating transportation, linking the northern and southern regions for most of the year.

In addition to being the gift of the Nile, ancient Egypt was also the gift of the desert. Through the vast stretches of arid land to the West and East of the Nile Valley, the Egyptians enjoyed a natural means of protection. They were safe living inside the narrow strip of the Nile Valley because of the deserts on both sides of it. Unlike the rapid changes of civilisation in Mesopotamia, what is now Iraq, ancient Egyptian civilisation enjoyed stability as a result of its being protected by the desert, which was also a source of many wild animals and different stones and minerals.

While Egypt is often recognised as the “gift of the Nile and of the desert”, the true credit for building its remarkable civilisation belongs to the ancient Egyptians themselves. Although the River Nile originates outside Egypt and flows for thousands of miles before reaching the Mediterranean, it was the Egyptians who harnessed its resources and thus transformed their lives.

They constructed dams, dug canals, cultivated the land, and quarried various minerals and stones, such as limestone, basalt, and granite. They also sought valuable resources like gold, silver, and semi-precious stones, trading with distant regions like Syria, Palestine, and Afghanistan.

The abundance of gold was so significant that foreign rulers, like one from Mitanni, an ancient state in Anatolia, wrote to king Amenhotep III requesting gold, likening its availability in Egypt to dust.

Egypt was a land rich in resources, which enabled the country to achieve centuries of glory under the Pharaohs. The grand monuments we see today, among them pyramids, temples, and tombs, reflect the ancient Egyptians’ love for life and their desire to carry that joy into the afterlife.

Their worldview and livelihoods were shaped by the natural rhythms of their environment, such as the daily rising and setting of the sun and the annual flooding and drying of the Nile, which provided fertile land for agriculture. These consistent cycles brought abundance and stability, allowing the Egyptians to develop a civilisation that excelled in art, technology, medicine, and literature, achievements that remain impressive even by modern standards.

Some ask the question of why a similar civilisation did not emerge elsewhere despite claims of its African origins. The answer is that Egypt’s prehistory, which preceded the development of writing, was marked by the growth of its agricultural society. This era culminated in the unification of Egypt under a single king, marking the beginning of the Pharaonic civilisation.

During this time, technological progress was defined by the use of different stone tools, commonly referred to as the Stone Age. The period ends with the Predynastic Era, when many fundamental aspects of Pharaonic culture began to take shape, though they were not yet fully developed.

In the Predynastic Period, agriculture spread to Upper Egypt, first emerging among the Badarian culture. By the Early Dynastic Period, Upper Egypt had two main centres of power, and the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt occurred under King Menes, marking the beginning of Pharaonic history.

AFROCENTRISM: Afrocentric movements, particularly in South America, such as an annual festival in Brazil, now celebrate the belief that African civilisations were the origin of Egypt.

Notable figures, like US comedian Kevin Hart, have expressed an interest in promoting this narrative, while US actress Jada Pinkett Smith has produced a film depicting Cleopatra as black. These movements continue to spark discussions about the origins of ancient Egyptian civilisation today.

However, in reality Cleopatra was Macedonian. Ryan Curtis, a friend of Hawass’, was able to arrange to make a film about Cleopatra, and in it he conducted interviews with Hawass and other Egyptologists. Very few people saw the Jada Smith film on Netflix, whereas our film was seen on YouTube by many, many people.

Hawass gave interviews pointing out that black people had nothing to do with the origin of ancient Egypt. He has done so for scientific reasons, considering the truth to be important. It has nothing to do with views on black people or African civilisation.

Hawass gave lectures in the US in May and June 2023 indicating the truth about the ancient Egyptians. During one lecture at the Convention Centre in Los Angeles, he encountered a backlash from some Black Americans who accused him of being dishonest. They even held up signs demanding that the University of Pennsylvania revoke his doctorate. When Hawass saw these signs, he laughed.

In a subsequent talk in Cincinnati, a wonderful Black American woman raised questions about Afrocentric beliefs during the Q&A session, contributing to a respectful discussion of the topic.

Hawass began to answer her questions by saying that the black Kingdom of Kush ruled Egypt for more than 100 years in the Late Period in about 500 BCE, and that this means that the people who lived in Kush had nothing to do with the origins of ancient Egypt. When we look at the architecture of Kush, such as its pyramids, we can see no similarities between it and that of ancient Egypt.

The art of Africa and Kush is fundamentally different from that of ancient Egypt. Examining depictions of Egyptian kings from the Predynastic Period to the end of this civilisation reveals distinct facial features, particularly when the kings are shown confronting enemies from Nubia, Libya, and Asia. This observation highlights the unique characteristics of Egyptian rulers compared to other groups.

In Hawass’ talks, he emphasised that acknowledging this historical distinction does not diminish the importance of other cultures; rather, it reinforces the integrity of historical facts, which cannot be altered.

The woman was delighted to hear this, and she noted that the day of the lecture was 27 May and that the next day would be Hawass’ birthday. She then encouraged the 2,000-member audience to sing “Happy Birthday” for Hawass. He was moved to tears and expressed his gratitude to both her and the audience.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 24 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly