section_path: Reign/Facial appearance
section_name: Facial appearance
paragraph_text: Facial appearance
  
  The appearance of ancient Egyptians, especially Tutankhamun, has remained an area of inquiry and debate. Multiple attempts have been made to reconstruct a computerized image of Tutankhamun's face. In 1983, forensic artist Betty Pat Gatliff, alongside forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow, developed a reconstruction image of Tutankhamun's face from a plaster cast of his skull.
  
  In 2005, an extensively media-covered study by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and National Geographic employed three different research teams (Egyptian, French, and American) to develop a facial image using CT scans of his skull. The Egyptian and French teams were informed that their subject was Tutankhamun, while the American team was not informed who the subject was, thereby working blindly. Results were generally similar, although the reconstruction did not resemble effigy artifacts of Tutankhamun. The depiction sparked controversy, particularly for its skin color, which also did not resemble painted effigies of Tutankhamun, such as the Head of Nefertem artifact or the mannequin artifact. Throughout the years, the image's light-skinned representation has ignited numerous picketing protests outside multiple Tutankhamun exhibits that included the depiction. Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs for National Geographic in response to protests purported that Tutankhamun's exact skin tone is unknown and that they aimed for a middle skin tone.
  
  In 2007, amidst more exhibition protests, anthropologist Nina Jablonski addressed what an educated guess of Tutankhamun's skin tone might be:
  
  "Our best guess is that he was neither lily white nor ebony black. He was probably somewhere in between... When we look at the representation of the Egyptian royalty on the walls of tombs, we see a range of sort of moderate, tan-colored skin on the royalty. This probably is a fairly close approximation of what skin color these people actually had."
  
  In 2008, Egyptologist Stuart Tyson Smith criticized the skin-tone choice of the 2005 study, stating that the light skin tone was indicative of a bias, elaborating that ancient Egyptians were generally of darker skin tone, especially in more southern regions. In 2022, bioarcheologist Andrew Nelson used CT scans and the 3D bioimaging software, Dragonfly, to create a virtual model of Tutankhamun's face. The result was distinct from prior reconstructions from skull CT scans. Nelson stated that the skull anatomy guided the project which made for a more realistic reconstruction. Nelson's study did not overlay a skin tone on the facial reconstruction. In 2023, researchers developed a new version of Tutankhamun's face using further CT scans. Results greatly resembled the results of the CT scan reconstruction performed in 2005. The skin tone was also akin to the skin tone chosen in the 2005 study.
  
  Depictions of Tutankhamun deemed Afrocentristic have repeatedly generated protest and tension. In 2023, an exhibit titled “Kemet: Egypt in Hip-Hop, Jazz, Soul and Funk” at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands depicted a statue of rapper Nas's (1999) I Am... album cover, which portrays Nas's face in the Mask of Tutankhamun. Egyptian antiquities expert Abd al-Rahim Rihan accused the exhibit administrators of promoting Afrocentric pseudohistory by displaying the Tutankhamun mask with black facial features, indirectly advocating the black Egyptian hypothesis. Similarly, Ahmed Belal, an Egyptian member of parliament, accused the exhibit administrators of “distorting Egyptian identity” and “attacking Egyptian heritage and civilization.” The exhibit administrators denied the accusations, stating that the exhibit takes a neutral position on the race of ancient Egyptians. Daniel Soliman, the exhibition curator, who himself is half-Egyptian, stated that some Egyptians feel an exclusive possession to the pharaonic heritage, while the African diaspora's artistic envisioned of ancient Egypt has been ignored. Museum director Wim Weijland stated that the exhibition is about art, not racially classifying ancient Egyptians.
  
  Egyptian journalist, Shahira Amin, in a 2023 article titled "Egyptians aren’t racist. They’re frustrated with Western appropriation of their ancient history", wrote that "many Egyptians shun their Africanness, preferring to associate themselves with the Middle East and identify as Muslims and Arabs."