Wow. The sound of a 3,000-year-old voice

Would you like to hear the voice of a 3,000-year-old mummy? Then please get in touch with Prof DM Howard of the University of London.

While it is not clear whether Howard and his colleagues desired to hear the voice of Nesyamun, the Egyptian priest who died 3,000 years ago, when they visited his mummy at the Leeds City Museum, surely the thought crossed their mind when they discovered that his vocal cords were surprisingly well preserved.

But you can’t make a dead vocal cord speak, no matter how well preserved. Fortunately, science today has several tools to get around problems like this. Howard picked two — CT scan and 3D-printing. He scanned the mummy’s throat, 3D-printed it and attached it to a loudspeaker to play an electronic signal that mimicked the sound of a human larynx. The researchers heard a sound, a sort of a groan, a melancholy drawl.

However, one should not conclude that Nesyamun, who lived during the politically volatile reign of pharaoh Rameses XI, did not possess any vocal finesse beyond the groan. The priest was employed at the state temple of Karnak in Thebes (today’s Luxor) and “his voice was an essential part of his ritual duties, which involved spoken as well as sung elements”, says Howard in a scientific paper published in Nature.

Obviously, the tongue and other muscles of Nesyamun had long wasted away, and a live vocal cord would assume different positions. So, the voice was Nesyamun’s, but surely he had more to say in his time.

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