Scientists Make 3000-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy Talk, After Recreating Its Vocals

Whenever we look at mummified bodies or bodies of people buried hundreds of years ago, we often try to imagine what they¡¯d look like, the way they¡¯d live their life in that era and even what they would sound like.

Well, it looks like scientists have tried to solve this last mystery in a rather cool way.

Leeds Museum

Reported first by LiveScience, Scientists have managed to reproduce the voice of an ancient Egyptian priest who was mummified, by recreating a 3D printed version of his actual vocal tract.

Researchers from the Royal Holloway took the help of computed tomography or CT scans to measure the actual schematics of the vocal tract of the mummified priest named Nesyamun. He has been a part of the Leeds City Museum in the United Kingdom for about two centuries now.

According to researchers, Nesyamun was responsible for his priestly duties that involved singing and chanting and conducting prayers.

Using the schematics, they 3D printed an artificial vocal tract which would produce sounds with the help of a device called Vocal Tract Organ that helps in producing an artificial human-like voice.

The voice itself isn¡¯t as impressive -- just a small humming sound, (one could easily mistake it for a phone vibrating on a table) and it doesn¡¯t say anything in particular, but the 3D printing of the vocal cords gives us an approximation of his vocal frequency.

Researchers stated in their paper, "While this approach has wide implications for heritage management/museum display, its relevance conforms exactly to the ancient Egyptians' fundamental belief that 'to speak the name of the dead is to make them live again.¡±

Leeds Museum

They added, ¡°Given Nesyamun's stated desire to have his voice heard in the afterlife in order to live forever, the fulfilment of his beliefs through the synthesis of his vocal function allows us to make direct contact with ancient Egypt by listening to a sound from a vocal tract that has not been heard for over 3000 years, preserved through mummification and now restored through this new technique."

It goes without saying that the recreation of the voice is only approximate to what it actually would have been like. However, this project does offer a unique way to engage with the past in rather interesting ways.