Mummy

Origin

The iconographic origin is the ancient Egyptian mummification practice and afterlife belief. The seventy-day funerary rite, canonised from the Old Kingdom (c. 3000 BC) and refined through the Eighteenth-Dynasty New Kingdom (1550-1295 BC), consisted of: (1) extraction of the brain with a hooked instrument through the nostril; (2) lateral incision and removal of the viscera into the four canopic jars of the sons of Horus (Imsety for the liver, Hapy for the lungs, Duamutef for the stomach, Qebehsenuef for the intestines); (3) desiccation in natron (natural sodium bicarbonate) for forty days; (4) anointing with resins and oils; (5) wrapping in dozens of layers of linen bandages with embedded Book of the Dead amulets; (6) the Opening of the Mouth ritual performed by a priest wearing the mask of the jackal-headed god Anubis. Herodotus recorded three price tiers of mummification in Histories Book II (c. 440 BC), and the Book of the Dead chapter 125 weighing-of-the-heart scene is the canonical image of post-mortem judgement. Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and the 1923 death of Lord Carnarvon globalised the modern Curse of the Pharaohs legend.

Features

• Natron-desiccated corpse wrapped in dozens of layers of linen bandages
• Curse upon tomb intruders (no documented Egyptological case; a product of films and novels)
• Slow but unstoppable pursuit — the decisive iconography of Karl Freund's 1932 film
• Command of sand, scarab beetles, and plague — the decisive iconography of Stephen Sommers's 1999 film
• Viscera preserved in canopic jars after extraction of the heart
• When revived, tragically driven to seek the reincarnation of a lost beloved

Stories

The classic literary canon of mummy horror begins with Bram Stoker's 1903 novel The Jewel of Seven Stars — the mummy of an Egyptian queen, Tera, is transported to England and attempts reincarnation. Universal Pictures' The Mummy (Karl Freund, 22 December 1932, with Boris Karloff as Imhotep) fixed the cinematic canon: the priest Imhotep, buried alive four thousand years earlier, awakens to seek his reincarnated beloved Anck-es-en-Amon, the template for all subsequent mummy films. Hammer Film Productions' The Mummy (Terence Fisher, 1959, with Christopher Lee) led the British horror revival. Stephen Sommers's The Mummy (May 1999, with Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep and Brendan Fraser as Rick O'Connell) redefined the mummy as a vast threat commanding sandstorms and scarab swarms, earning 415 million US dollars worldwide; The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) followed. Alex Kurtzman's Dark Universe reboot The Mummy (2017, with Sofia Boutella as Ahmanet and Tom Cruise) attempted a female mummy lead.

Weakness

The mummy's weaknesses are: (1) extreme flammability — the desiccated linen wrappings and resin-impregnated corpse ignite immediately, resulting in complete annihilation; (2) destruction of the source of the curse — destroying protective amulets (the scarab, the ankh, the Eye of Horus) or canopic jars containing the viscera deprives the mummy of resurrection; (3) reverse incantation of Book of the Dead spells — reading the awakening spell in reverse returns the mummy to sleep; (4) sealing by sacred texts such as the Book of Amun-Ra, the canonical resolution of Stephen Sommers's 1999 film. In Karl Freund's 1932 film, Imhotep crumbles into four thousand years of weathering the moment he loses the amulet of Isis, and in Sommers's 1999 film, Imhotep is dragged back to the realm of death by the closing incantation of the Book of Amun-Ra. If the Egyptian Opening of the Mouth ritual is the rite that awakens the mummy, its inverse rite is the weakness.

Cultural Significance

The mummy is not merely a horror icon but a product of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Egyptology, colonialism, and Orientalism. Napoleon's 1798 Egyptian expedition and Jean-Francois Champollion's 1822 decipherment of the Rosetta Stone established Egyptology as a discipline, triggering British, French, and German tomb-excavation rivalry. Howard Carter's 4 November 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and Lord Carnarvon's death from a mosquito-bite septicaemia in April 1923 were sensationally reported by the Daily Mail and the New York Times as the 'Curse of the Pharaohs', laying the popular foundation of mummy horror; the causal link between Carnarvon's death and the excavation is academically unproven, but newspaper reportage congealed it into iconography. Mummy films became one wing of the Universal Pictures Golden Age of Horror (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy) from 1932. Edward Said's 1978 Orientalism reads Egyptian mummy iconography as a paradigm case of Western Eastern-othering. Debates over the ethics of displaying mummies at the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo continue into the twenty-first century.

In Popular Culture

Herodotus, Histories Book II (c. 440 BC) — earliest detailed record of mummification4 November 1922, Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — origin of the modern Curse of the Pharaohs legend5 April 1923, death of Lord Carnarvon — explosion of 'Curse of the Pharaohs' newspaper coverageTheophile Gautier, The Mummy's Foot (1840), The Romance of a Mummy (1857) — Romantic literary originArthur Conan Doyle, Lot No. 249 (1892) — canonical mummy horror short storyBram Stoker, The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) — Victorian British mummy novel canonKarl Freund, The Mummy (1932) — cinematic canon of the Imhotep mummyTerence Fisher, The Mummy (1959) — British mummy film of Hammer HorrorStephen Sommers, The Mummy (1999) — globalisation of sandstorm and scarab iconography