Mummy at Reading museum finally has a face

READING, Pa. (AP) — After 80 years on display at the Reading Public Museum, Nefrina finally has a face.
The bust of the 2,300-year-old mummy, created more than three years ago by forensic artist Frank Bender, was unveiled to a standing-room-only crowd in the museum recently.
“It’s always nice to be where the public can appreciate my work and learn about the history of Egypt as well as provide an opportunity to educate the young,” said Bender, 68, of Philadelphia shortly after the unveiling.
Jonathan Elias, 51, Harrisburg, director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, part of a team promoting mummy restoration projects, praised Bender for his skill as an artist and his forensics insights.
“This work is not only a work of forensic art, but a classical work of art as sculpture,” Elias said. “Frank talked a lot about his forensic work tonight, but he is a classically trained artist and this sculpture shows that.”
Bender is internationally known for his forensic work in facial reconstruction to help solve murders. He gave a hour-long presentation outlining that work before the formal unveiling of the Nefrina bust.
“I’m an artist, but I wanted to serve the public with my art,” Bender said. “Basically, I live my whole life on intuition and go with the flow.”
The unveiling of the Nefrina sculpture brought audible sighs of appreciation from an audience of more than 150 people.
The cream-color bust shows a woman with a serene smile, and was created to give life and personality to the gaunt, leathery mummy that has delighted Reading Public Museum visitors since 1930.
Nefrina was the daughter of people who worked in the temple of the fertility god Min. She died of a badly treated hip fracture in the third century B.C.
For years after the mummy arrived in Reading, most people assumed it was that of a man. A set of X-rays in 1972 showed otherwise.
Over the past several years, Nefrina has been CT-scanned and studied widely, leading to several new findings such as her fake ears and the medicinal poultice near the hip fracture that was intended to heal her in the afterlife.
A team from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg created a polymer replica of her skull, based on the CT scan images.
Bender created the bust from that skull, much as he has done for murder victims and others — including a woman whose remains were found in 1988 in a shallow grave at French Creek State Park.
Nefrina’s bust was completed in 2006, but budget problems and other priorities delayed its unveiling. Several weeks ago, former museum Director Ronald C. Roth had the bust placed in a showcase for the new “Nefrina’s World” exhibit, but covered it with a cloth pending the unveiling.
Forensic artists like Bender begin with a skull, using the theory that faces are unique because skulls are unique.
Then they add other experts’ information about the victim’s race, gender and age and background since they also shape the subject’s features.
Because the depth of the facial tissues for those characteristics is generally known, the artists apply clay to that thickness to re-create the face.
Bender has said he originally was planning to give the final Nefrina bust a bald head to be fitted with a wig. Instead, he sculpted the hair as well.
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