Facial reconstruction reveals 2,700-year-old Egyptian mummy was Sudanese princess

Measurements suggested she was probably from the sprawling empire of the kingdom of Kush

The facial reconstruction of Ta-Kr-Hb. Photo: Dr Chris Rynn

The remains of an ancient Egyptian princess have been revealed to be a woman who came from modern-day Sudan.

The mummy, which has been part of Perth Museum’s collection since the 1930s, was buried inside a sarcophagus more than 2,700 years ago.

The museum wanted to build a picture of how she looked ahead of an exhibition which would feature it, called Waters Rising, which opens on November 8, so it asked Dr Chris Rynn, a craniofacial anthropologist and forensic artist, to create a digital reconstruction.

He built a 3D image of her skull from X-ray images and adding muscle and soft tissues to the bone. It quickly became apparent that she looked nothing like traditional depictions of ancient Egyptians.

Her facial measurements suggested it was highly probable that she was black and from the sprawling empire of the kingdom of Kush, which included modern day Sudan and controlled upper Egypt.

“Everyone was familiar with the face on the sarcophagus, which looked like a kemetic ancient Egyptian with a long face. But her skull didn’t look like an ancient Egyptian skull,” Dr Rynn told The National.

“They tend to have long cranium, a long narrow face, while she has kind of a wide cranium and a small face. There is no way I can make her look kemetic.

“I didn’t really have any artistic interpretation over any of that. It was all based on measurements,” he said.

Bumps where her eyelids were tethered to the skull suggested that she had “upturned eyes in downturned sockets”.

“I started looking for skulls with similar orbits and found dinka skulls that are Sudanese, which are very similar looking,” Dr Rynn said.

“I looked into when she was alive and it was the 25th dynasty, which was about 700 BC. So I thought what was happening in ancient Egypt at the time? That was when the ancient kushites took over. The kushites were Sudanese.”

The woman was known as Ta-Kr-Hb, according to the hieroglyphics on her sarcophagus. She is thought to have been a priestess or princess.

“She was mid-adult, age 30-40. But it’s difficult to assess for age because her teeth were so damaged,” said Dr Rynn.

Her sarcophagus is believed to have been found in the late 19th-century and sold in Egypt to a businessman from Alloa. It was later donated to Perth Museum.

The museum is also home to the Stone of Destiny, which is used to crown British kings and queens, and was most recently used in the coronation of King Charles III last year.