ATF develops portrait of museum's mummy

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Thanks to an unusual pairing of forensics and art, and a tool normally reserved for tracking down criminals, there's now a facial image to go along with a tightly wrapped 2,500-year-old mummy at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

The facial image was created through a collaboration that included special agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who are trained in using a computer program to develop sketch portraits of criminal suspects.

"What we're celebrating is ... a bit of CSI and art," Julian Zugazagoitia, director and CEO of the Nelson-Atkins, said Friday before unveiling a sketch of the face of the museum's mummy, Ka-i-nefer.

The program, called E-FIT, or Electronic Facial Identification Technique, has been used for 17 years to help track down "murderers, serial rapists, terrorists, arsonists and many others," said Kenneth Melson, deputy director of the ATF, who called the ATF collaboration with the museum "unprecedented."

"They've really gone back 2,500 years to determine what this person might have looked like," Melson said. "We were able in essence to use a modern law enforcement tool to bring the past to life."

The mummy, which dates to about 525 B.C., and was acquired by the Nelson-Atkins from Emory University in 2000, is part of the museum's Ancient Art Galleries, which opened in May after a $1.7 million renovation.

Robert Cohon, curator of ancient art at the Nelson-Atkins, said working with the ATF was a "genuine pleasure," and that giving the mummy a face was initially important because it was "going to be another piece of the puzzle."

Then he saw the facial picture created by the ATF and found it was more.

"When I saw this image I stood up from my seat," Cohon said. "Here were eyes looking directly at me. ... When you see this image you can imagine being in downtown Thebes. ... It's that powerful of an image.

He said the end result is more than an image of what the mummy might have looked like.

"They've created a time machine for children, families and adults to go back to ancient Egypt," he said. "In fact they've made Ka-i-nefer come back to life."