Scientists reveal what Egypt’s warrior pharaoh known as ‘The Brave’ looked like – 3,500 years after he was brutally killed in battle

Scientists have reconstructed the face of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was brutally murdered 3,500 years ago, revealing how the king met his fate.

Seqenenre-Tao-II, also known as ‘The Brave’, was murdered when captured in the middle of the night or on the battlefield at the age of 40 while trying to liberate Egypt from the Hyksos people in 1555 BC.

A team of archaeologists from Australia’s Flinders University pieced together his face using CT scans and X-rays of the king’s mutilated skull, showing the pharaoh with small eyes, lips and high cheekbones.

The facial reconstruction also revealed that a blow to the upper part of Toa’s brain likely led to his death.

Scientists have reconstructed the face of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was brutally murdered 3,500 years ago, revealing how the king met his fate

Seqenenre-Tao-II, also known as ‘the Brave’, was either murdered in his sleep or cut down on the battlefield when he died in 1555 B.C. Egypt tried to liberate from the Hyksos people.

The manner in which the pharaoh died, whether captured or on the battlefield, has been a subject of debate since his remains were found in the 19th century.

But what is known is that there were several attackers who attacked Tao from different directions.

Tao’s face was reconstructed using his skull that archaeologists had found in 1886 in a funerary complex known as Deir el-Bahri, in the Theban necropolis.

They digitally scanned the remains, uploaded them to a computer and filled in the blanks with a skull from another individual that had previously been digitized.

The other skull was resized until it matched Tao’s – a process called anatomical deformation.

The team went to work by drawing a digital profile of the king’s face and making the skin color similar to what was common among the ancient Egyptians.does not necessarily reflect actual skin color,” the study reads.

Toa’s eye shape, eyelashes and eyebrows are also subjective elements, but researchers say they humanize the ancient king.

A team of archaeologists from Australia’s Flinders University pieced together his face using CT images and X-rays of the king’s mutilated skull, showing that the pharaoh was of Nubian descent, with small eyes and lips and high cheekbones.

The team drew information from previous research to understand how the death unfolded, which showed that the first ax blow occurred in the lower right frontal area and left cheek.

Toa’s remains were first analyzed in 1886 by Egyptologists who first identified a wound just above his brow bone and that his tongue had been bitten between the teeth.

The team also used thickness markers that matched those of African descent and then added digital wounds to see exactly how the objects injured the king.

Digital skulls with exposed brains were then used to see which ax killed the king, revealing that the largest wound had penetrated his brain.

The weapon punctured the superior sagittal sinus, likely causing bleeding that led to Tao’s final breaths.

For the post-mortem images, the team left his lips slightly open and the tongue between the teeth due to some injuries and facial deformities that the details would have caused when Tao was killed.

One of the weapons punctured the superior sagittal sinus, likely causing hemorrhage that led to Tao’s last breaths (Image C)

For the post-mortem images, the team left his lips slightly open and his tongue between his teeth due to some of the injuries and facial deformities that the details would have caused when Tao was killed.

Gaston Maspero, a French Egyptologist, discovered the brave pharaoh in 1886 among hundreds of coffins and mummies.

Maspero determined that Tao was slim, with a small and elongated head and black, fine and curly hair – based on the hair left on the mummified body.

The pharaoh ruled the southern Theban region of Egypt from about 1560 to 1555 BC, during the Seventeenth Dynasty.

At that time, Lower and Middle Egypt was occupied by the Hyksos – a dynasty of Palestinian descent who ruled from the city of Avaris in the Nile Delta.

Tao fathered two pharaohs: Kamose, his immediate successor, and Ahmose I, who ruled after a regency from his mother.

Gaston Maspero, a French Egyptologist, discovered the brave pharaoh among hundreds of coffins and mummies. Maspero determined that Tao was tall and slim, with a small and elongated head, black, fine and curly hair – based on the hair left on the mummified body

Egyptologists James Harris and Kent Weeks, who conducted a forensic examination of Tao in the 1960s, said that a “foul, oily odor filled the room the moment the suitcase in which his body was displayed was opened.”

This smell was attributed to bodily fluids being accidentally left in the mummy during burial.

During embalming, those performing the ritual pack the body with minerals that dry it out.

But experts have suggested that Toa’s mummification was rushed because fluid remained in his body, but the reason is not yet known.