The faces of three ancient Egyptian men who lived up to 2,797 years ago have been reconstructed using genetic data extracted from their mummified remains.
It is the first time such a technique has been used on human DNA of that age.
The trio came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient city on a floodplain to the south of Cairo, and are estimated to have been buried some time between 780 BC and 5 AD.
Their DNA was first sequenced in 2017 by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Tübingen, Germany.
That genome reconstruction has now enabled researchers at Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology firm based in the US state of Virginia, to create 3D models of the mummies’ faces with the help of a process known as forensic DNA phenotyping.
This uses genetic analysis to predict genetic ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, freckling, and face shape in individuals from any ethnic background.
Brought back to life: The faces of three ancient Egyptian men who lived up to 2,797 years ago have been reconstructed using genetic data extracted from their mummified remains
As an example, the test can say a person has green eyes with 61 per cent confidence, green or blue with 79 per cent confidence, and that they definitely don’t have brown eyes with 99 per cent confidence.
Based on ancestry, and other markers, the test also creates a likely facial shape.
From all of this information, it builds a computer generated e-fit.
The technology has also been used to generate leads in criminal cases where there are no suspects or database hits, or to help identify remains, for example.
‘This is the first time comprehensive DNA phenotyping has been performed on human DNA of this age,’ Parabon said in a statement.
The firm’s experts found that the three Egyptian men, who belonged to an ancient Nile community and are estimated to have lived between 2,023 and 2,797 years ago, had light brown skin with dark eyes and hair.
Interestingly, their genetic makeup was closer to that of modern individuals in the Mediterranean or the Middle East than it was to modern Egyptians, the company said.
Researchers also generated 3D meshes of the mummies’ facial features and used heat maps to highlight the differences between the trio so they could refine the details of each individual.
These differences were then emphasised to create caricatured faces, which were combined with pigmentation predictions to allow a forensic artist to produce composites of the individuals’ likely appearance at the age of 25.
‘It’s great to see how genome sequencing and advanced bioinformatics can be applied to ancient DNA samples,’ said Dr Ellen Greytak, Parabon’s director of Bioinformatics.
‘These techniques are revolutionising ancient DNA analysis.’
Researchers also generated 3D meshes of the mummies’ facial features and used heat maps to highlight the differences between the trio so they could refine the details of each individual
Map of Egypt, showing the archaeological site of Abusir el-Meleq (orange X) from which the ancient mummies were taken
The mummies were taken from a single archaeological site on the River Nile which was inhabited from 3,250BC to 700AD.
They were among 151 mummified individuals, buried between 1380 BC and 425 AD, whose DNA was sequenced by experts at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Tübingen.
Researchers managed to extract accurate, full-genome DNA data from three ancient Egyptian mummies, and usable segments of DNA from 90 more.
The genome-wide samples were the first ever taken from mummified remains.
The team compared this ancient Egyptian DNA to genome samples from modern Egyptians to analyse differences in genetic makeup.
They found that ancient Egyptians were most closely related to ancient populations in the Levant (modern day Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon), and were also closely related to Neolithic populations from the Anatolian Peninsula and Europe.
Researcher Verena Schuenemann at the Palaeogenetics Laboratory, University of Tuebingen
Read more here: Source link