She lived some 3,500 years ago, but thanks to cutting-edge facial reconstruction technology, a woman from Late Bronze Age Mycenae has been brought vividly back to life.
Believed to have been around 35 years old at the time of her burial, she was laid to rest in a royal cemetery dating to the 16th or 17th century BCE. The burial site was unearthed in the 1950s in mainland Greece, at Mycenae—the legendary city of King Agamemnon, as described by Homer.
The digital recreation of her face, commissioned by Dr. Emily Hauser, has captivated both scientists and the public.
“She looks incredibly modern. It took my breath away,” Hauser told The Observer.
“For the first time, we’re looking into the face of a woman from a kingdom linked to Helen of Troy. In myth, her sister Clytemnestra was queen of Mycenae—and it’s from this very place that Homer imagined the Greeks setting off for the Trojan War. These digital reconstructions remind us that they were real people, not just figures from epic poetry.”
Hauser, a senior lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter, described the experience as deeply moving:
“It’s thrilling to think that, for the first time since she was placed beneath the earth 3,500 years ago, we can now look into the actual face of a royal woman of the Bronze Age.”
This woman lived several centuries before the presumed date of the Trojan War, yet her image offers an extraordinary glimpse into the real people behind ancient myth and legend—making the distant past feel suddenly, and strikingly, present.