Scientists forced to speak the ancient mummy

Modern technology makes it easytransmit information through the "air", move us in space at huge speeds, and even create new types of viruses. Becoming more advanced, technology allows a modern person to capture earlier and unexplored areas of knowledge faster and faster, the results of which could be very surprising for our ancestors. The next such event in the advancement of technological progress was a special scan, which was carried out by an ancient mummified Egyptian priest in order to hear his voice again.

3000 years later, the voice of an ancient Egyptian priest was heard again

What does the mummy's voice sound like?

According to an article published on the portallivescience.com, UK scientists have been able to conduct a detailed medical scan of the mummified remains previously owned by an ancient Egyptian priest. Thanks to the study of biological material, experts reconstructed the vocal tract of the famous Nesyamuna mummy, which is now in the Leeds Museum.

Using medical images, scientists have createdA 3D model of the internal structure of the mouth and throat of the mummy, and then recreated them on a 3D printer. The resulting vocal tract was combined with an artificial larynx in order to recreate the true sound of Nesyamun's voice. It is worth noting that the last time his voice was heard back in the 11th century BC.

Despite the fact that scientists still managed“Make” the mummy speak, in the process of reconstruction several difficulties arose. So, for example, the true sound of the voice was greatly distorted due to the difficult position of the head of the mummy itself and, of course, changes under the influence of time could not but aggravate the situation. Experts suggest that the specific position of the vocal tract in the mummy was caused not by a desire to pronounce any vowel before death, but rather corresponded to the necessary position of the neck during burial.

See also: In Egypt, found mummies of lions and a statue of a scarab beetle. Why are there more such discoveries?

Voice reconstruction belongs to the ancient Egyptian priest Nesyamun

Previous attempts to reproduceancient voices could only approximately “revive” facial structures, resorting to computer modeling. Now the sound of the voice of the mummy, preserved for three millennia, was based on the existing voice path.

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Priest Nesyamun is currently one ofthe most researched artifacts that have been preserved since ancient Egypt. Nesyamun lived during the reign of the 20th dynasty of the Egyptian king Ramses Xl. He managed to rise to the "Vaab priest" in Karnak, which at that time was a fairly high rank. This rank allowed to approach the statues of Amun, who was considered the most prominent of the ancient Egyptian gods.

It is believed that the death of ancient Egyptiana priest at the age of 50 came due to a severe allergic reaction. It is known that the inscription on the tomb of Nesyamun, which stated that the priest hopes to "turn to the gods after death," was interpreted by scientists as the desire of Nesyamun to speak after death, which was fulfilled several thousand years after the death of the priest.

Experts hope that further improvement of technology and knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language will allow to restore longer fragments of the speech of the Egyptian priest.