Archaeologists from Peru and Poland excavated the Queen in a pyramid tomb named El Castillo de Huarmey, which is located in the north of Lima, 20 12. According to National Geographic, this mausoleum contains the remains of 58 aristocratic women, including the Queen, who was buried in a private grave. All women are part of the culture of war. Long before the Incas came to power, they lived in this area from 700 AD to 1000 AD.
There are jewels and other luxurious handicrafts in the queen's mausoleum, including bronze axes and silver goblets. It also holds her skull, which the archaeologist gave to Swedish forensic artist Oscar Nelson, so that he could reconstruct her appearance and show it to the whole world. [Photo: Amazing Mummies in Peru and Egypt]
The value of the skull is too high to handle, so Nelson used a computed tomography (CT) scanner to make a virtual 3D image of the skull. Then, he sent the digital data to a 3D printer, which made a replica of the skull with vinyl plastic.
This is the beginning of this challenging work. Nelson said that in forensic medicine, it is important to know the gender, age, weight and race of the person-factors that affect the thickness of facial tissue.
Nelson knows that the Wall Beauty King is at least 60 years old. With this knowledge and more knowledge, he had to draw 30 plastic nails with a certain length on the queen's replica skull. "After that, it is time to start playing; Start carving faces! Nelson wrote in an email to Life Science that it is composed of "muscles from the inside out, piece by piece".
He carved muscles with plasticine, relying on the method of helping forensic artists rebuild people's eyes, nose and mouth reliably. "Ears are more speculative," he said.
Next, he covered the muscles with a layer of skin. "Details, wrinkles and pores have been carved to make them more realistic," he said. When I finished modeling the face, I made a mold and then cast the face with silicone. In this way, I can make it very realistic. Even to me, it looks almost like a real person.
Nelson used artificial eyes in the reconstruction process. He inserted real human hair into the silicon scalp one by one. He said, "We actually use Peruvian hair, which was bought by the Polish archaeological team in Peru. He even gave the royal woman a golden metal earring. " He said, "These earrings are duplicates of those she found in the grave. Nelson spent 220 hours rebuilding the Queen, which was completed at the end of 1 1. " . He described the repair as "the face of a very dignified old woman", he said. "She looks smart (and experienced) and a little tired, maybe sad or considerate." She's thinking about something. Maybe it's a way of remembering, just like old people sometimes do.
Nelson's techniques for reconstructing portraits of ancient queens were also used by law enforcement agencies in cases where the victims could not be identified. He said that about 70% of these cases were solved after reconstruction. "This is not a portrait of the dead, but you can get a good understanding of the facial expressions of the dead.
Queen Wali's reconstruction works are now on display in the New Peru exhibition at the National Ethnography Museum in Warsaw, Poland.
This is an original article about life science.