<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3UDUZ2_0kBBoQlF00" style="display:none" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3UDUZ2_0kBBoQlF00" width="1428" height="803" > The face of the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/55578-egyptian-civilization.html" rel="nofollow"> ancient Egyptian </a> ruler Ramesses II — possibly the pharaoh of the biblical Book of Exodus who persecuted Moses and the Israelites — has been reconstructed from his <a href="https://www.livescience.com/mummification.html" rel="nofollow"> mummified </a> remains. And although the pharaoh died in his 90s, his visage has been "reverse aged" by several decades to show him in his prime, at about age 45. "We carried a three-dimensional age regression process to remove some of the signs of ageing in order to depict him in his middle-age, at the peak of his power," <a href="https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/staff-profiles/faculty-of-arts-professional-and-social-studies/liverpool-school-of-art-and-design/caroline-wilkinson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Caroline Wilkinson </a> , director of the Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, told Live Science in an email. The result is a portrait of the pharaoh Ramesses II described as "handsome" by <a href="https://www.saharsaleem.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Sahar Saleem </a> , a professor of radiology at Cairo University in Egypt and the leader of the project. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate> "King Ramesses II was a great warrior who ruled Egypt for 66 years," Saleem told the radiology magazine <a href="https://www.auntminnieeurope.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&amp;sub=cto&amp;pag=dis&amp;ItemID=623481" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> AuntMinnieEurope.com </a> . (An "Aunt Minnie" is a <a href="https://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?sec=abt&amp;sub=faq&amp;pag=dis&amp;ItemId=50609" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> radiological term for an unquestionable diagnosis </a> .) "Bringing Ramesses' face to life in his old age and as a young man reminds the world of his legendary status," she said. Related: <a href="https://www.livescience.com/gallery-of-reconstructions" rel="nofollow"> 30 amazing facial reconstructions, from Stone Age shamans to King Tut's father </a><h2 id="mummy-scan-5"> Mummy scan </h2> The mummy of Ramesses II is now in the <a href="https://nmec.gov.eg/mummies-hall/ramses-ii/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> National Museum of Egyptian Civilization </a> in Cairo. It was discovered in 1881 near Luxor in southern Egypt, and at some point after that, it was partially unwrapped to show the pharaoh's mummified features. For the latest facial reconstruction, Saleem made a three-dimensional virtual model of the pharaoh's head and skull from new <a href="https://www.livescience.com/64093-ct-scan.html" rel="nofollow"> CT scan </a> data — effectively, thousands of X-rays assembled into a 3D image — which Wilkinson then used to reconstruct his face with computer software used in criminal investigations. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate><figure class="van-image-figure inline-layout"><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4Jx78p_0kBBoQlF00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4Jx78p_0kBBoQlF00" width="1323" height="744" ><figcaption class="inline-layout">The new facial reconstruction was made from computed tomography data of the 3,000-year-old mummy of Ramesses II. (Image credit: Liverpool John Moores University Face Lab ) </figcaption></figure> Next, Wilkinson used computer-generated imagery (CGI) techniques to add <a href="https://www.livescience.com/27115-skin-facts-diseases-conditions.html" rel="nofollow"> skin </a> , eye and hair textures, based on what Saleem reported would have been common among Egyptians at the time — which showed what the pharaoh may have looked like when he died — and finally used the age regression software to show how he had likely appeared decades earlier. "The age regression was challenging, as this was in 3D," she said. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate> Wilkinson explained that the field of estimating the face of someone from their skull is dominated by two approaches: "facial approximation," which uses average data, templates and biological profiles to produce an "average" face, which might result from several different skulls; and "facial reconstruction," a more detailed attempt to determine what a particular person looked like, based on anatomical standards, measurements and morphological analysis. A related term is "facial depiction," which adds colors and textures, she said. In this case, the team used the more detailed approach. "The face of Rameses II was produced using 3D facial reconstruction and then a 3D facial depiction process," Wilkinson said. Image 1 of 2 <figure class="van-image-figure"><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3HxDTF_0kBBoQlF00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3HxDTF_0kBBoQlF00" width="1348" height="758" ><figcaption class>Hair and skin coloring based on what's thought to have been common in ancient Egypt were then added to the facial reconstruction. (Image credit: Liverpool John Moores University Face Lab ) </figcaption></figure> Image 2 of 2 <figure class="van-image-figure"><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0bvfwS_0kBBoQlF00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0bvfwS_0kBBoQlF00" width="1282" height="721" ><figcaption class>The first stage of the facial reconstruction was to use anatomical measurements and other techniques to determine how the pharaoh looked when he died at the age of 90. (Image credit: Liverpool John Moores University Face Lab ) </figcaption></figure><h2 id="famous-pharaoh-5"> Famous pharaoh </h2> The pharaoh who is said to have persecuted Moses and the Israelites in the story of Exodus is never named in the Bible, but several historians think his depiction most closely resembles Ramesses II, who was a celebrated ruler at a height of Egyptian power in the 13th century B.C. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate> As a result, Ramesses II — also called Ramses II or Ramesses the Great — has often been depicted in literary and film adaptations of Exodus, including in the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments." <figure class="van-image-figure inline-layout"><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=48Rv29_0kBBoQlF00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=48Rv29_0kBBoQlF00" width="1200" height="675" ><figcaption class="inline-layout">The mummy of Ramesses II was found in 1881 in southern Egypt; at some point it was partially unwrapped to show its mummified head. (Image credit: G. Elliot Smith; "Catalogue General Antiquites Egyptiennes du Musee du Caire: The Royal Mummies"; Wikimedia Commons) </figcaption></figure> However, American historians Megan Bishop Moore and Brad Kelle wrote in " <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Biblical-History-Israels-Past-Changing/dp/0802862608" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Biblical History and Israel's Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History </a> " (Eerdmans, 2011) that no <a href="https://www.livescience.com/44448-what-is-archaeology.html" rel="nofollow"> archaeological </a> evidence has been found to support the idea that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, nor for any of the other events described in Exodus, including the <a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/406/EXO.14.5-29.ERV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> destruction of the pharaoh's army </a> as it pursued the Israelites across the Red Sea. <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate> related stories — <a href="https://www.livescience.com/ancient-cave-burial-ramesses-II-period" rel="nofollow"> 3,300-year-old cave 'frozen in time' from reign of Ramesses II uncovered in Israel </a> — <a href="https://www.livescience.com/tomb-of-ramesses-ii-official-discovered" rel="nofollow"> Ancient tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses II official discovered at Saqqara </a> — <a href="https://www.livescience.com/jericho-skull-facial-approximation" rel="nofollow"> Look at the face of the 'Jericho Skull,' buried 9,000 years ago with shells for eyes </a> Historical records attest that Ramesses II was born in about 1303 B.C. into the family of the pharaoh Seti I and that he became pharaoh when his father died in about 1279 B.C. During his reign, Ramesses II <a href="https://www.livescience.com/tomb-of-ramesses-ii-official-discovered" rel="nofollow"> expanded the Egyptian empire </a> as far north as modern-day Syria and built many monumental structures, including the expansion of the Karnak Temple. He died in about 1213 B.C. Ramesses II also influenced later culture: he was the inspiration for the 1818 poem " <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Ozymandias </a> " by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had seen a huge broken statue of Ramesses II — known as Ozymandias in Greek — in the British Museum in London, leading him to pen the words "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" <nbtemplate data-id="AdPlaceholder" data-content="JTdCJTdE"></nbtemplate></div></body>

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Scientists have used facial reconstruction techniques to show what the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II looked like in his prime.