31 amazing facial reconstructions, from Stone Age shamans to King Tut's father

People from the past have left behind a treasure trove of clues about their lives — from enormous monuments to fragments of personal items, as well as the bones of the people themselves. But the people who left these clues are often a mystery. Now, thanks to modern scientific techniques and technology, researchers can accurately reconstruct what those people actually looked like, helping to bring long-dead people from history back to life.

Here, we take a look at some of the best reconstructions.

1. Czech Republic Stone Age woman

A digital approximation of what the Stone Age woman may have looked like.

A digital approximation of what the Stone Age woman may have looked like. (Image credit: Cicero Moraes/Jiri Sindelar/Karel Drbal)

Initially incorrectly identified as male, a skull found buried inside a cave in Mladeč in the Czech Republic turned out to belong to a 17-year-old female from the Stone Age, who lived around 31,000 years ago. Researchers believe she lived during part of the upper Paleolithic period known as the Aurignacian, and she is one of the oldest Homo sapiens found in Europe.

2. Bronze Age woman from Spain

The digital facial reconstruction of the Bronze Age woman wearing the diadem.

The digital facial reconstruction of the Bronze Age woman wearing a diadem. (Image credit: Copyright Joana Bruno/ASOME/Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Archaeologists from the Autonomous University of Barcelona discovered the remains of a man and woman from the Bronze Age, who were buried together in a ceramic pot at the La Almoloya site. A scientific illustrator created a digital reconstruction of the woman using the woman's partial skull and jewelry — in particular a diadem (silver crown) to figure out her head measurements.3. Stone Age woman found in Sweden

Oscar Nilsson , a forensic artist based in Sweden, spent 350 hours reconstructing the Stone Age woman's likeness.

It is believed that this Neolithic woman lived in what is now Sweden about 4,000 years ago. (Image credit: Oscar Nilsson )

The skeletal remains of this Neolithic woman in her late 20s were found during the construction of a road in Lagmansören, Sweden. A forensic artist spent over 350 hours creating her likeness, basing the reconstruction on the scanned skull and on what we know about migration into ancient Scandinavia.

4. Bronze Age Bohemia

Accurate anthropological reconstruction of the image of a woman from the grave No. 2, which was discovered in Mikulovice near Pardubice, Czech Republic. This woman has light skin, brown hair and brown, wide-set eyes, a distinctive chin, a smaller figure, adorned with bronze and gold jewelry and a beautiful amber necklace.

Using a skull and remnants of DNA, it was possible to create the face of a woman who lived in central Europe nearly 4,000 years ago. (Image credit: archiv MZM)

The bones of this Bronze Age woman, believed to have lived between 1880 B.C. and 1750 B.C., were found in a graveyard near the village of Mikulovice in Bohemia, the Czech Republic. This wealthy woman was part of the Únětice culture, known for their metal artifacts, so it was unsurprising that she was found buried with five bronze bracelets, two gold earrings and a three-strand necklace of more than 400 amber beads.

5. Penang woman from the New Stone Age

The final reconstruction of the Penang woman.

Archaeologists from the Universiti Sains Malaysia dubbed her the 'Penang woman.' (Image credit: Universiti Sains Malaysia/Cicero Moraes)

Using a combination of 3D imagery of modern-day Malaysians and CT (computed tomography) scans, researchers created a virtual face approximation of this 40-year-old woman who lived during the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age. Discovered during a dig at the Neolithic site Guar Kepah in Penang, northwest Malaysia, radiocarbon dating of shells found by the remains of the "Penang woman" suggests she lived about 5,700 years ago.