Hear the voice of a real mummy, thanks to 3D printing

[MUSIC] [SOUND] We've been hearing Hollywood's take up what a money would sound like for decades. But now scientists have use 3d printing to give a real voice to an actual mo [UNKNOWN] This is Nesyamun, he's an Egyptian priest who died about 3,000 years ago. Now a little more recently, he's been one of the top attractions at the Leeds City Museum in the UK. Back in 2013, British researchers began the process of putting the mummy through a series of CT scans. Now they actually moved him from the museum to a hospital to get those scans done. I hope they brought him to the back. If I'm a patient waiting in the I think it would be pretty unsettling to see them carting in a mummy. But I digress. The CT scans confirmed exactly what the researchers had hoped for. Thanks to the mummification process, Nesyamun was well preserved enough to get an accurate scan of his vocal tract. Then researchers replicated it with 3D printing. Now our vocal tracks essentially filter sounds that are produced from the larynx, giving us each our unique voices. Now once they have the replica, they hooked it up to an electronic larynx and a loudspeaker. What they heard was the closest thing to the voice of an Ancient Egyptian we have ever heard. Aa, aa. So what was that sound exactly? Well, the team analyzed audio recordings from modern men and found the ancient sound fell somewhere between the vowels in bad and bed. >. Aa. [SOUND] But remember, this wouldn't necessarily be an exact copy of a functioning vocal tract. The real one was sitting around for three millennia, and researchers admit that the sound isn't one that he would ever actually made in real life. Based on the larynx, they were able to speculate that he probably had a higher pitched voice than the average man today. And in what some would call an odd coincidence, others, maybe even divine intervention, the inscription on his sarcophagus said he hoped his voice would be heard in the afterlife. Now, you might be asking, is there any real point to this? Well, the scientists say, from this sound, they can create sounds he actually would have made. And their next goal is to develop computer model that could move the vocal tract around. That would allow them to form different vowel sounds and maybe even words. So imagine a future where you could go to a museum and maybe even have a conversation with a historical figure in their actual voice. Maybe that's a ways off. But I for one love the idea of someday being able to hear the Gettysburg Address and Abraham Lincoln's actual voice. Maybe this could even be used to bring back the voices of some of the all time great singers. Elvis cover of truth hurts anyone. [MUSIC] Maybe not. That's it for this week. I'm Andy Altman, see you in the future.