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Ammon News - A mysterious mummy known only as the gilded lady because of her golden headdress can be seen for the first time after scientists rebuilt her face.

The woman lived in Roman-occupied Egypt and died in her 40s, perhaps of tuberculosis, and her mummy carried no hieroglyphics to reveal her name.

In order to protect her remains, she was never unwrapped, but she was CT scanned for the first time in 2011, unearthing new details about the body.

Now her true face has been revealed more than 1,500 years after she died, revealing her 'delicate' features as they were during life.

Cicero Moraes, lead author of the new study, said the reconstruction was assisted by the mummy's careful preservation.

He said: 'The structure is very well preserved, in the original state of discovery, without the mummy being unwrapped.

'Something that draws attention is the presence of short, curly hair, which can be seen in the tomography reconstruction.'

He continued: 'Initially, we reconstructed the skull, based on the computed tomography, and later adjusted the position of the jaw.

'The skull allows us to design structures such as the nose, ears, eye position, lip limits and others, using data measured in tomography scans of living people.

'Furthermore, we use measurements carried out using ultrasound, also on living people, to find out the thickness of the soft tissue in different regions of the skull.'

Because of her origins in Roman-occupied Egypt, tissue-thickness data was used from modern European women aged 40 to 49.

The resulting face was blended with another face made using a process called anatomical deformation.

Daily Mail