Four pre-Columbian mummies kept at theInstitute of Anthropology and History They had funerary masks fused to their skulls. Literally fused: resin, clay, wax, and corn pressed onto their faces until they became a second skin. This type of burial is common in pre-Columbian South America, but only these four examples exist in Colombia. The tombs had been looted, the archaeological context lost. Only the decorated surface remained, with a few pearls around the eyes.
Face lab ofUniversity of Liverpool He used CT scans to digitally remove the masks without touching them. The result? Four faces reconstructed after eight hundred years: a child, an elderly woman, two young men. Straight from the distant past.
Masks that blended into the face
As mentioned, pre-Columbian masks were modeled directly on the deceased, adhering to the skull with almost surgical precision. Resin, clay, corn wax and sometimes gold: materials that over time solidified on the bone creating a surface that was impossible to remove without destroying everything. The process required a deep knowledge of human anatomy and a craftsmanship that few possessed. As he explains: Felipe Cárdenas-Arroyo ofAcademia Colombiana de Historia, These masks are of extraordinary workmanship and represent the only known examples of this funerary practice in Colombia. In other regions of pre-Columbian South America, from the Maya to the Incas, the use of death masks was widespread. But the Colombian technique had something special: the casting was so perfect that the bodies appeared still alive.
The four individuals lived in the Colombian Andes, in the region of Eastern CordilleraRadiocarbon dating places them between the 1216 and 1797A boy of six or seven, a woman in her sixties, two young men. The masks are damaged: noses missing, pieces broken at the base, but some decorative beads still remain around the eyes. The tombs had been looted centuries ago, so contextual information is lacking. We don't know who they were, what role they played in their community, or why they deserved such elaborate funerary treatment.
Technology removes layers without touching anything
Jessica Liu, Face Lab's project manager, coordinated the digital reconstruction work. The team began with complete CT scans of the masked skulls. Computed tomography uses X-rays to generate virtual 3D images, photographing thousands of two-dimensional sections and reassembling them. This allowed the researchers to “digitally unmask” skulls By removing the layers containing the mask, without physically damaging the artifacts, the most complex phase began: reconstructing the faces.
The process works a bit like virtual sculpting. The skull skeleton is used as a scaffolding and muscles, soft tissue, and fat are added. For the two young men, the team used facial tissue depth data from modern Colombians. Comparable contemporary data are lacking for the woman and the child, so the researchers used general anatomical references and added extra fat to the child's face to reflect childhood facial structure.
The nose shape was determined by measuring the skull's bone tissue and selecting the most suitable option from a digital database. Skin tone, eye color, and hair color were chosen based on regional characteristics. Each face was presented with a neutral expression to avoid interpretations about the personality of individualsThen came the hardest part: adding texture. Wrinkles, lashes, freckles, pores. Liu explained that texture is always the biggest challenge, because it's simply not known what they actually looked like: scars, tattoos, variations in skin tone. What the team presented is an average representation, based on what is known about these individuals.
They are not portraits, they are approximations
Liu was clear on this point, which is obvious: The reconstructed faces show how these people might have looked, not how they actually looked.Reconstructions are based on group averages, but no one is ever a perfect average. Individual characteristics, expressions, distinctive features: all of this remains beyond the capabilities of current technology. Yet, it was still a beautiful operation. What Face Lab did was restore a visual identity to four individuals who had remained anonymous for eight hundred years. They are not photographic portraits, but images that allow us to recognize a human presence behind the masks.
The project was first presented in August 2025 at theXI World Congress on Mummy Studies in Cusco, Peru. A fitting setting, considering that the work specifically concerns South American funerary practices. Face Lab, founded in 2015 as a pioneering craniofacial research center, often collaborates with law enforcement for forensic identification. But cultural heritage projects like this one allow museums and scholars to rethink the human past in new ways. Similar techniques were also used on Egyptian mummies, where DNA phenotyping has allowed faces to be reconstructed from genetic information.
Why these pre-Columbian masks are important
The Colombian masks bear witness to a culture that invested extraordinary resources and expertise in preparing the dead. The perfect fusion of mask and skull requires time, precision, and specialized materials. This treatment was not reserved for just anyone. These four individuals likely belonged to the elite or held a special role in the pre-Columbian communities to which they belonged. But without the archaeological context, this remains only speculation. What we know is that their society had developed a sophisticated understanding of human anatomy and advanced artistic techniques. The masks were made to last, to preserve their identity even after death.
Today, thanks to the work of Face Lab, those faces are visible again. They are no longer just anonymous museum objects, but people with a story. A child who never reached adulthood, a woman who passed sixty at a time when life expectancy was much shorter, two young men in the prime of their lives. Four lives that span the centuries and look back at us, thanks to a combination of ancient craftsmanship and modern technology.
Their cultural legacy continues to be recognized, and this is perhaps the greatest gift that technology can give to the past.
