Researchers have painstakingly reconstructed the faces of a man and woman whose 2,600-year-old remains were discovered in southern Siberia in 1997. The team members used laser scanning and photogrammetry to build 3-D models of the ancient skulls. Then they recreated parts of the two that had not been preserved, and built clay models over the reconstructed skulls.
The couple were buried in clothing covered with more than 40 pounds of golden decorations. Their remains were found in a wooden chamber in the Arzhan-2 burial mound, but they were not alone. In the mound but outside the chamber were the remains of 33 other people, including five children, and the remains of 14 horses (each from a different herd).
Based on the combined evidence of the couple’s high-status burial, their focus as the center of the mound, and the less-cared-for remains buried around them, the man and woman are thought to have been a Scythian king and his queen or concubine.
