An anthropologist who reconstructs faces to help identify murder victims has taken up a case 3,400 years old.
Virginia Smith is working on the face of the mummy of Then-Hotep, an Egyptian woman believed to have met a violent death. X-rays taken of the mummy in 1985 revealed that both thigh bones were shattered and her head was gashed.Smith is making a rubber mold of Then-Hotep's skull and will build a clay replica of the woman's presumed features.
Then-Hotep's mummy was damaged in the 1937 Ohio River flood, which washed away the dried skin and the ears and promoted growth of mold on the linen wrappings. The mummy was baked and dried but has never been restored.