The Face of a Woman Who Lived 3,500 Years Ago in Mycenae ‘Reborn’ Through Technology

A woman who lived approximately 3,500 years ago was brought back to life through facial reconstruction technology. The woman from the Late Bronze Age, before the Trojan War, was buried in a royal tomb between the 16th and 17th centuries B.C. The site was discovered in the 1950s in mainland Greece in Mycenae, the legendary seat of King Agamemnon of Homer. Historian Dr. Emily Hauser, who commissioned the digital representation, stated: “It’s incredibly modern. It took my breath away. For the first time, we are looking at the face of a woman from a kingdom linked to Helen of Troy – her sister Clytemnestra was queen of Mycenae in myth – and where the poet Homer imagined the Greeks of the Trojan War began. Such digital reconstructions convince us that these were real people.” Hauser, a lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter, added: “It’s incredibly fascinating to think that, for the first time since she was placed under the earth 3,500 years ago, we can now look at the real face of a royal woman from the Bronze Age.” Digital artist Juanjo Ortega G. reconstructed the woman’s face from a clay model created in the 1980s by the University of Manchester, pioneering one of the most important methods in facial reconstruction. The woman was buried with an electrum mask and three swords, believed to have belonged to her rather than the man buried beside her. Her arthritis in her spine and hands highlights the physical strain on women of that era, akin to Helen in the Iliad, described as weaving.