Scientists Re-Create Voice of 3,000-Year-Old Mummy

Longtime Slashdot reader vm writes: You don’t have to wait until next Halloween to get creeped out. Using 3D printing, medical scanners, and an electronic larynx, researchers have recreated the voice of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy. The tongue has deteriorated over three millennia and all they have so far is a vowel sound but it’s a pretty clever way to raise the dead with science. “The researchers then synthesized Nesyamun’s voice by 3D printing a model of his airway and connecting it to an electronic larynx, an artificial voice box that provides a noise source,” reports Science Magazine. “Based on writings on Nesyamun’s coffin and the objects he was buried with, researchers know that he was an Egyptian priest and scribe who likely sang and spoke to the gods as part of his ritual duties. His coffin inscriptions include a wish to ‘see and address the gods as he had in his working life.'” The findings have been reported in the journal Scientific Reports.