Overview

• Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University digitally removed four pre-Hispanic death masks using CT X-ray scans to reveal the skulls beneath.
• The mummified individuals include a 6- to 7-year-old child, a woman in her 60s, and two young adult males from the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes.
• Radiocarbon dating places the burials between 1216 and 1797, though looted graves have left little archaeological context for interpretation.
• Reconstruction used specialized software and a haptic stylus to add muscles and soft tissue, applying modern Colombian male tissue-depth data only to the adult male skulls due to data gaps for children and older females.
• The stylized masks—made of resin, clay, wax, and maize—are described as extraordinary and are the only such examples reported in Colombia, with some retaining ornamental eye beads despite damage.