A: National Geographic magazine cover © National Geographic
B: Reconstruction of Tut by Michael Anderson, Yale Peabody Museum © National Geographic
C: Reconstruction prepared by Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt led by Dr. Hawass and Khaled Elsaid. © Supreme Council of Antiquities

PART ONE: The Scanned Skull
King Tut is the world’s most famous mummy, so it is no surprise that a reconstruction of his likeness from his skull, CT-scanned in 2005 by a team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass, would be controversial. In the end, three separate reconstructions were made, shown as A, B, and C above. See details in this press release.

One practical problem with the reconstruction of Tut that is seldom mentioned is that it is based on a CT scan. For a living human, CT scans are great because the density of bone is so different from soft tissue that it clearly separates in a scan. A mummy is different. The dried soft tissue of a mummy is often so hard that a CT scan has trouble differentiating it from bone, particularly if resin or other embalming agents were used.

The “skulls” used to make the reconstruction of King Tut were therefore CT scan approximations of the skull, and tissue depth build ups, whether on virtual skulls or on rapid prototype models, were based on the best judgement of the individual reconstructors as to where bone stopped and tissue started in some places.

The image below shows the rapid prototype skull that was used to create the French and American reconstructions for National Geographic magazine. The holes in the skull are present because these teams opted for as little flesh as possible. There was only one setting difference between a skull like this and one that had too much flesh.
Photo by Mark Thiessen © National Geographic.