27/10/2025
Scientists have digitally unveiled the faces of four ancient Colombians who lived between the 13th and 18th centuries, removing death masks that had covered their features for hundreds of years. The reconstructions were presented in August at the 11th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Peru, offering a rare glimpse into pre-Hispanic burial traditions.
The four mummies include a child aged 6 to 7, a woman in her 60s and two young adult males, all from the Eastern Cordillera region of the Colombian Andes. Each had stylized death masks made of resin, clay, wax and maize fused to their faces and jaws. Radiocarbon dating places these individuals between 1216 and 1797. Remarkably, these are the only known Colombian examples of this burial practice, though it was common elsewhere in pre-Columbian South America.
Using CT scans, researchers from Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University digitally peeled away the mask layers to reveal the skulls beneath. They then employed specialized software and haptic stylus pens to virtually sculpt muscles, soft tissue and fat onto each skull, using facial tissue depth data from modern Colombian men for the male reconstructions. Nose shapes were determined by measuring skull bone structures, while skin, eye and hair colors reflected typical regional traits.
Project manager Jessica Liu emphasizes these reconstructions show what the individuals could have looked like rather than exact portraits, as they are based on group averages. The faces were given neutral expressions to avoid personality assumptions, with painstaking attention to texture including wrinkles, pores and eyelashes. đ
