The Mummy - An Archaeologist Reacts
The Un-Script:
Read along with my wild thoughts
I absolutely love this movie. I just want to make that abundantly clear before I point out all of the incorrect historical things. It is one of my favorite movies of all time I watched it when I was a kid and of course I was a bit scared of the beginning with the mummy popping out I guess spoilers for the beginning of the movie but then I watched it again – I think I was maybe around 10 or something (came out in ‘99 so I was seven, and I rewatched it a few years later, so could’ve been 10). I absolutely fell in love with it, especially with the characters of Evie and Rick and just their combination and chemistry… perfect casting. They were my ship and I loved them, their adventurous spirits, her knowledge and attitude, and his humor and bravery. But that's not really what this is about. This is a historic review about all the things that they got right, but mostly the things they got wrong.
They are showing the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx being built so if it wasn't so if it was being constructed then that implies that it was like 4,500 years ago which would have been around Khafre in the Old Kingdom because he was the one that changed the head but also the stones look white and they just called it Thebes, I just had to pause the movie because thieves is not in Cairo it never was it's a completely different city Cairo is Cairo or like I should say there is a city that the pyramids were built in and that is Cairo not Thebes. But going back to what I was talking about before if they were if they were building it then it would have been 4,500 years ago in the Old Kingdom but then they just said steady the first which was in the New Kingdom in the 19th Dynasty, The one after King Tut and that whole Game of Thrones thing. Although I guess they could be refurbishing it, it didn't really look like that with the white, but what I do love is that they put the golden cap stones on top of the pyramids.
However, right after that they kind of mess it up again because the pyramids would have been completely covered with white limestone and would have like glowed in the Sun so unless they used those pieces and then made it all squarish like we see today and use those that white limestone to fix up the Sphinx which is painted in this and has hieroglyphic cartouches on its shoulder which I don't know if it ever had I can't say definitively but another thing that I like but I'm not sure I don't think it actually existed in Cairo is all of the buildings on the keys of plateau yes there were buildings but it was a funeral area all of it the Giza Plateau is not in the middle it's in Cairo but it's not surrounded by Cairo it's kind of off to the side because it's a graveyard basically and I know cuz I've been there there is one side of it or two and a half to three sides of it that are like full of City when you look at but the other side is or two and a half sides one and a half side something like that that's all desert just completely barren and the keys of plateau every like I'm going again was the perfect place to build all of these giant structures on these pyramids on because it was right across the river from the quarry where they took all of the Stone from and the Nile used to flood nowadays if they're not flooded so much of Cairo would be destroyed but back then Cairo wasn't sitting on the Giza Plateau right next to the pyramids and right under the pyramids so there was they knew cuz then I would flood so they had their own system and during the not farming season when the river would flood the workers over the vast expanse of ancient Egypt would or maybe not the richest ones but a lot of workers from around ancient Egypt would go up and get work during their off season and they quarry the stone work they float it over the river to the other side onto the geese of plateau which did not flood and then they would move it over to where the pyramid was being built and stack it up and it's really heavy it's really hard work but also they were not slaves they were farmers they were other workers who didn't have work during this flooding season and so they they went up to Giza they got paid in beer and in food.
Map of Ancient Egypt - World History Encyclopedia (Tina Ross). Thebes is Karnak and Luxor, Giza is Cairo.
But I do like how they built up the temples and building even though they probably wouldn't have been that tall and they definitely wouldn't have been that close to this the Great Sphinx because we have that whole area we have that area mapped and we know where buildings were because they're still there and the Sphinx is in its own area and I'll put a picture below of what it actually looks like also on the Sphinx the head looks a bit too proportional because it doesn't look that proportional in real life and the back looks back in the movie looks too short and definitely trying to negate the idea that the whole body was built before 4,500 years ago when coffee adjusted the head and made it look like him in the perfect kind of Egyptian way I'm 42 seconds right now and I've complained this much but I also like that in the camera or towards the camera they have the got a moon who is a common who is one of those old gods that was connected with up with Amun Ra so it was a big deal and the fact I'm just jumping back to the beginning for a second the fact that they started with the sun yes the sun is like obviously desert but it's also raw especially over the Great Pyramid because that's why they started building pyramids and And that's why they put people out in the Valley of the Kings under that mountain because it looks like a pyramid that leads up like a Stairway to the heavens. and the sun always sets on the East because that was the way of death just like in the Maya area cuz that's where the sun's or in the West cuz that's the my area that's where the dead go the dead go to the west and raw always went to the west and went around the went through the underworld came back up on the East the next day so that's the side of life okay continuing with the movie now. I also just really like the building design and how accurate it is with especially with the paintings on the pillars and ceilings.
The Sphinx “the Strangler” with a great pyramid in the background (Whitehouse 2016).
And there's the Anubis statue that they see later maybe but there are a lot of them so I don't actually know there's another Amun and there are the sphinxes that are lined up kind of like they are at Karnak but a lot bigger cities I don't think that's really accurate but it is Thieves could be the city of the living but again they're showing thieves as in the place of Cairo which is under the shadow of the pyramids which is definitely undercropolis not an acropolis Metropolis dead Acropolis life and they're showing home of the fair is high priest I don't know So as I said earlier meant atre or study the first was the second pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty living in 1290s around that. of time and obviously Imhotep was named after the original Imhotep, who was not a high priest. He was an architect, a the king’s viser, a healer, etc. He is known through time because he designed and he built the first step pyramid of King Djoser and that was 4,000 BCE so much older than all of the ancient stuff in the movie (with the Sphinx being a possible exception) and so he was made into a god figure and worshiped by builders, masons, scholars, and healers. So, the name was probably reused multiple times throughout history, but there was no actual known Imhotep serving Seti I as a high priest.
Also think they have way too many obelisks.
And obviously, you would not be exactly white anyway, but because it is a Mediterranean area, people are lighter, especially if they don't have to go out and work. But they're not going to be European, and this is after Nubia conquered part of Egypt. Unfortunately, that's the whole ‘90s thing anyway, so I'm not going to really comment on that except for this little thing.
This whole block of exposition from whom we later learn is the Magi leader Ardeth Bay, who happens to have been named after the mummy from the original black and white movie and the book written by Bram Stoker. After that, the Mummy became just another staggering zombie horror movie monster. Ardeth Bay was a clever man who was trying to resurrect his girlfriend, who had been reborn in another body, which is closer to the plot of the sequel, but I'm not talking about that. I learned all of that from watching Overly Sarcastic Productions Halloween special on mummies, highly recommend. I will definitely link that in the show notes.
Imhotep is the Keeper of the Dead, which probably would mean that he is more of a high priest of maybe Osiris or Anubis because otherwise who is he the high priest of? They don't actually say.
And then they have Anksunemun, the pharaoh's mistress. I am so glad that they did not try to go with Ankhesenamun one because that's Tut's wife, but that might be harder to say, and of course, they can reuse names. It sounds like that's what they might have been going for, but it was too hard to pronounce or they could have just changed it. I wouldn't have been surprised if they were trying to do an Ankhesenamun (but didn't say it right) because they did do Nefertiti, Evie was the reincarnation of Nefertiti, Seti 1st's daughter, who didn't exist. He did have 2 daughters with Queen Tiare or Tuya Sitre, called Tia and Henutmire, sisters of Ramesses II. But it wasn’t the Nefertiti, 18th dynasty queen, Tut’s Mother and maybe the real Ankhesenamun’s mother.
Anksunemun’s just wearing body paint. Yes, women beared their breasts because; one it was hot, two the fashion was usually having kind of a Regency Empire waistline with the drooping linens being held up by leather or cloth adorned belts, and then they might have like a shawl to protect your shoulders from the sun. Just having body paint wasn't really a fashion that anyone actually knows about, but I mean, they are trying to make her sexy. But the loincloth kind of underwear can be seen in Egyptian art of dancers and performers. They also gave her a super long wig, sure she doesn't have to go outside but a wig like that is going to make you really hot most of the wigs were much shorter. They were cuts above the shoulders like a lob or bob, which were popular in the 1920s when Egyptomania was all the rage.
If they really wanted to be accurate, they should put a little cone of perfume on her head made of animal fats for example, and it would just melt over the course of the day and make them smell good, but they want to make them look good, so that would look strange. She would have different makeup with definitely stronger eyeliner and a longer cat tail. They wouldn't have gold lipstick, but they did wear red lipstick and blue-tinted eyeshadow. It was a very common thing to wear makeup, but not the colors that she's wearing, that is a very ‘90s thing.
The detail in the set is so cool, I really like it, I'm just staring at the snakes coiled up on the poles in the back, and I'm thinking Greece because that's like the medical symbol, the Rod of Asclepius, but I mean snakes are very common thing in Egypt too. How dumb was Imhotep for touching and rubbing her paint? I mean, come on, her body is painted. If anything, just touch her where it wouldn't be obvious. But I guess he has too much passion. You've been having an affair this long and you make a mistake now?! Weird.
I hope doctors were allowed to touch her most doctors were also priests but or a priestess. Then all of Imhotep’s followers are all painted gold too, so what's up with that?
Why does the pharaoh come in now? It's just so freaking random like, ‘oh I saw Anksunemun coming in this way I'm going to follow her’… which also is very possible. I like that he's wearing the Eye of Horus or the Eye of Re and he's wearing the crown with the coiled snake on it, which is Wadjet. She's just chilling on the cat statue of Bast/Bastet and her eyeliner is again like a bit too thin it probably although she didn't have to go outside so it didn’t have to preform it’s utilitarian functions of sunlight reflection and sticking to bugs before crawling into eyes. Then she happens to have a knife so she stabs him in the back, and the acting in this is just glorious and I love it just cause the king is moving in slow motion and nothing else is. The bodyguards, the Magi are holding Khopeshs which is a kind of curved blade and it comes from the same kind of blade use as sythes and size as sickles to cut down shorter stocks of grains in the field.
But the pharaoh’s bodyguards are coming, so why don't you both run?
Then they go to Hamunaptra City of the Dead, which, again, Cairo is a city of the dead (as has been used in history) but Hamunaptra never actually existed, even in myth. So according to one The Mummy Wikipedia and also like Egypt a lot and that joyptological review and probably a lot more sources too have an opera was no such place even mythologically no several necropolises did and do exist in Egypt as I discussed and I was right most notably in Giza which is where Cairo is Sakara amarna and thieves which is hilarious cuz it's Thebes, the city of the living along with Luxor, is right across the Nile from the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and the Temple of Hatshepsut.
However they were also associated with living cities which includes Memphis which is a city that was founded under akinatan in the 18th Dynasty before King Tut, that was Dad, and also Thebes. But all of them were public knowledge, and everyone knew where they were because they were regular cities where everyone went. Thebes was several hundred kilometers to the south, according to the scribes and a map. like as I was talking about a little bit before setting the first was in the 19th Dynasty he was the very famous father of Ramases II who is known to be Egypt's most powerful King. So he definitely had kids with someone, but they never mentioned that, his royal wife, or the fact that most likely died unexpectedly from an illness since his body had no signs of trauma on it (Egyptian Museum n.d.). But he had his son, not just his daughter Nefertiti as it is as it says in the second movie, who didn’t exist.
The pyramids it's 4,000 years ago 2,667 to 2,648 BCE got another Dynasty I'm guessing not moon is how her name is actually pronounced is the wife of two in common in the 18th Dynasty and 1,336 and we don't actually know the date of her death but it was around 1,000 - 1,327 BCE. Maybe that's they were thinking the same thing as me and mentions how they are also central to the Boris Karloff 1932 movie because it has the female character that gets reincarnated. So we said Hamanatra doesn't exist, we already have no problems that are very very famous that it's not forbidden to go into because there are cities around them and also their tourist destinations so people buy tickets.
When they are laying out her body to be worked on they show five canopic jars, that is incorrect there are only four and I think that is because in the movie. In one scene, we see five jars containing her various organs. These are canopic jars, which became an important element in Egyptian burials after the Middle Kingdom. Ancient Egyptians, contrary to the film, only used four jars. Each jar would have contained one organ, and one of the Four Sons of Horus would protect each jar.
The four canopic jars.
Head — Son of Horus — Organ
Falcon — Qebehsenuef — intestines
Human — Imsety — liver
Baboon — Hapy — lungs
Jackal — Duamutef — stomach
But looking at the movie it looks like they added a lion to it and I know I'm going to get a closer view of them later so I'll just confirm it then and I'll talk about the Book of the Dead and everything cuz they haven't actually said what it was yet so I'll talk about that later as well.
There's a floating black filing looking soul of Anksunemun coming out of the black sludge and it just makes me think that she did not make it to Paradise I mean she did kill someone so she probably would have failed and she wasn't actually mummified so that would have been a huge problem but I guess they mom fire her later but I guess she probably failed at getting into the Field of Reeds as the the good afterlife but if she failed she would have just been devoured by Amut/Ammit so maybe she's in a holding pattern or something of other souls before she actually does the entire weighing of the heart ceremony.
Now she's wearing clothes and has like a painted necklace maybe it's a tattoo they did have tattoos back then it does look like a tattoo and they were really cool it was like looks like the Specter of death when it did that which I mean makes sense she is dead and mummified people alive that's that is so f*cked so bucks in the Hom dai.
Let's look at what it actually means. Looking into it and being shuttled right back to the Egyptological Review of the Mummy the Humdai is completely fictional, even in myth, which makes complete sense because why the heck would you ever give anyone the power to become like all the plagues? Which, by the way, would not have happened yet because that was to take place in Ramsey II’s time. That's when he was said to happen in the Bible, which, no, I technically didn't read but of looked at stuff that talked about it and and I also watched The Prince of Egypt many times too. That's obviously not historically accurate for many reasons but it is a bit more biblically accurate to the Book of Exodus because that was the whole point of the movie. But Ramses and Moses’ father was Set I, they even said his name in the movie. The 19th dynasty follows Ramses I, Seti I, then Ramses again, then Seti II. And then later you have Ramses II, and he's called Ramses the Great, so obviously if there wasn’t a mass exodus of slaves that left from Egypt. If they left their entire workforce because he wouldn't have been known as Ramses the Great and wouldn't be able to build and conquer anything or anywhere. So that would be ridiculous, plus his son lived, although to be fair, Seti II most likely wasn’t his firstborn. But, it would still be dumb to give a person who did a bad thing that much power to come back and bring about a bunch of plagues of Egypt, especially since that hadn't happened in history yet, it just be weird just doesn't make any sense.
The real sentencing can be pretty bad in the afterlife, not so many people who are just buried alive out in the desert. Also, mummification was a very expensive, time-consuming process. It took over 40 days just to dry out your body in the material called Natron. There are capital punishments, however. They did do punishments by burning in ancient Egypt, depicted in a funerary text along with people with decapitated heads, so bad things happen for sure, but the homdai ritual is not real, partly because there would be no way that they could guarantee that they would have magic after they died. One of the examples of a mythical way that they would have bad things happen in the afterlife one you have to make it to the afterlife first because the creature almost or amidst devours all who do not pass the famous judgments weighing of the heart ceremony in the Hall of Truth or the heart ceremony in the Hall of Truth and like one thing that the egyptological review says Hall of two truths I heard 42 truths when I was learning it cuz you have to answer 42 questions but in one of the Spells in the Book of the Coming Forth by Day, someone named Ani stands before three deities, hoping to avoid decapitation by reciting a spell:
I am a Great One, the son of a Great One, I am a flame, the son of a flame, to whom was given his head after it had been cut off. The head of Osiris shall not be taken from him, and my head shall not be taken from me. I am knit together, just and young, for I indeed am Osiris, the Lord of Eternity. (3)
Get out his tongue wrapping in Linens while he's still alive nothing stopping from coughing up blood I wonder after cutting out his tongue put him in a sarcophagus which again all of this stuff is super expensive they had to carve that from scratch what a waste then they come cover them with scarab beetles which obviously do not eat human flesh they have they eat them and then they put him in another sarcophagus both of them are really like the first one is very intricately carved and then they put him in another one that he's, ‘The undead for all eternity, who would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind. An unholy flesh-eater with the strength of ages, power over the sands and the glory of invincibility’. Why didn't they just let Amut devour him? Then he'd be gone forever, and it wouldn't matter. He would cease to exist, his soul would be gone, but no, they had to do this crazy craziness, and that's why we can't have nice things. No, that never would have happened, and it didn't ever happen. Also, there's no magic in this world, and we are all sad to go to bed without it would be awesome, although there would be a lot of fireballs.
Although I would just cast fly, all the time, and fly everywhere super fast.
Is it barium under the statue of Anubis now Anubis he's like the crazy kind of looking one cuz like oh my god he has a jackal for a head giant ears and stuff like that well one it's not it's not the set one with the weird ears that doesn't that might not have actually existed or maybe went extinct but we skip forward so like any of us was our best friend anyway in 1923 Egypt was fighting with the French Foreign Legion to kick out I think it was the Persians It's not frozen we English actually helped Egypt right or what Egypt developed its own constitution in 1922 and voted on it in 1923 so they were fighting for their own independence and if Rick was part of the French Foreign Legion I don't know which side he was fighting for because the French word not really involved as far as I can tell and the British were more helping plus like the fighting would have been before 1923 even though that's like the fighting happened in 1918 and 1919 I mean there's probably more fighting happening in his person in the meantime but that just kind of implies that Rick is fighting for the wrong side which sucks So I guess it just implies that Rick is fighting for the side of I don't want to say against Egyptian independence but the French did conquer Egypt so maybe they're trying to hold on to it I don't know and then the other people attacking them were just not talked about so I have no idea who they were they might have just been the Revolutionary Egyptians who wanted to be independent and then they got it so yay.
And the Magi are just standing there watching there are very many of them if you think about it because I mean you probably have a lot of kids and like their kids would have a lot of kids for over 3,000 years you probably have a lot more people and God Benny is so cool he just steals the show but also it's hard to steal the show really from Britain Frazier but he can do it this is like nope I'm out and you can see his tattoo I never noticed that before actually like this tattoo from or no I guess that was on his wrist so never mind I guess you can't see that tattoo but I saw a tattoo on his hand or on the the outer side it was just oh wait maybe that's where it was I haven't seen the second movie in a long time and probably all this is going to be cut from being put on like an extras extra as addition I think I was like all the uncut uncut director's cut that's just uncut version of this whole thing with all the pause is intact they're all riding horses yes they're smart and that guy just throws his sword and I hope he goes to get it while he's on his horse but it's like oh no they have the nameless faceless kind of army that they're fighting against but it's just what the French Foreign Legion be fighting the English were helping them get independence and the friends are generally against the English but not like now not after World War I they're definitely on the same side after World War I don't you close that door oh my God it was freaking hilarious that almost say if you want to watch it with me then like pay like five bucks or something but it's just like I pause it so often if I was I'm at 10 minutes and 40 seconds and he's running and then he gets the Anubis statue who is like the best friend of people who are going to the afterlife and then they all like just back off a guy two of the horses fall down they don't want to shoot him because of the crazy magic that's there which I'm like shoot him then run away but that would be much more and then the whisper scope I was like you will die oh my God the closed captioning said the whisper said you will die the same comes I like that actual effects and then you get the computer graphic effect which is just so beautiful lots of dead people with the other Army evacuated and the creature remain undiscovered mostly Rick's running away and turning the hook oh my God it's too much on too much should we kill him no the desert will do it like really really did and now you got Cairo Egypt three years later so that would be 26 so during this. Egypt is independent and the they're at the Museum of Antiquities which is a real place and it does going to look like that hate when it just stops recording or not stopped recording but stopped writing okay so would have been 2016 that I went to Cairo and they had the Museum of Antiquities was still open and I think it might be still open now because the new Cairo Museum that was built on the outskirts of the city that I never got to visit because it wasn't open yet and I need to go back to Egypt. Even if I went now (June 20, 2025) it is still not open, postponed many times, for good reasons. The latest is due to the most recent escalation between Israel and Iran.
And you have that actor who is in starting SG-1 as As Daniel Jackson's father-in-law so he was one of the people from the original movie and played like a Egyptian and ancient Egyptian person he is not Egyptian but casting he is a great actor I like him meaning but I've seen him in a lot of other things too he's a good character actor.
Ramses II’s conquest of Syria, an accident? I don't think so, he wanted to conquer it so he did, and I do like that she's British and said miles because the British use miles, I love that.
I'm not sure why I said Meshiver because I think that's Yiddish I don't look it up For the word Meshiver There isn't a consensus online because it seems like people are like is it Yiddish or is it Arabic because there is like a sugar that's like crazy in Yiddish so that would make sense except that he's not Hebrew Jewish that one cuz it did to say Allah but I guess you could want anyway they're all abrahamic religion so I don't care or it could mean a traveler which in Arabic which wouldn't make much sense or code some people say Means winter in Aramaic again don't think people speaking but that'll be funny Hey Google translate doesn't give me anything at all for Arabic orientation not bad automatically trust them but maybe better than Reddit. Do they like those lights those torches every day I'm usually didn't have a full like I mean there was electricity in the 1920s so I can't tell if that's a storage room or if that's in the museum because museums are very much a thing where what kind of just especially I'm sure back then you just go and look at stuff I mean they had not mummy unwrapping partners still less so now at this at least that point but that mummy was definitely unwrapped. After all, it had no wrapping on it, so I don't think so, at least partially on rats, because the skull is completely shown, and Jonathan is drunk out of his mind.
Benbridge Scholars require Evie to have more experience in the field. Well, I could do that, but I've not been working in Egypt
Cities being talked about by locals is a very common thing, that's how El Dorado got started, and it is hilarious, another OSP video on YouTube that I highly suggest watching.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, all right and what's a “good time” is never found out, but if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should watch the movie.
The way that they're prison is laid out and they're all like they're all like pointed toward the center is a very kind of French old psychological kind of torture situation a little bit because they had all the prisoners watching each other see if they do anything wrong and then and then the guards could keep an eye on all of them at the same time as well which it was a very interesting kind of point from philosopher Michael Foucalt who incidentally also lived in the 1920s, barely, he was born in 1926 so the exact year that the movie takes place. This prison would have had the layout already, so I wonder whose idea it was. Obviously, Foucault had such philosophically strong opinions about it. Back to the jail at 21 minutes and something seconds in between 2 minutes now what was that very good time I'm so curious it's kind of interesting that he is that the jail boarding dude is wearing like the Communist kind of flag of Vietnam it's just red on it's like a gold star on red which is also just like communist in general so like but Egypt wasn't communist at this point so I have no idea what that's about either they just make interesting choices
God damn Rick is so lucky that his neck is very strong I think it was George of the Jungle that did it.
It's like haggling while he's dying?
It is cool that they have the ferry and the dock area right in the middle of Cairo. The Aswan dam was done being built in 1971 so it's accurate that they have the Nile still going through Egypt because it would be, especially if it’s flooded and they’d have to clear out a whole region. It's just so dry now; they still have a decent-sized river, but I think it's a lot smaller. I should say that when the boats full of Magi follow the ferry, they are just going to get the map and key back and protect Egypt and the world. But since you don’t know them, you don't know who they are yet, so they seem like the bad guys. It was cool when you saw like the doctor in the American group, although I guess he might be British, I don't know, but it's very cool because you saw him in the previous scene while they were all boarding the ship, you would see the same people on the ship.
So Evie brings up the book of Amun Re (or gold), and even in mythology that doesn't seem to exist. Also, Re is a god separate from Amun-Re, although it's also a God that connects Amun and Re. They both are solar deities and leaders of the pantheon, kind of the top gods of different time periods. Mainly the point is, there's no book about Amun-Re, it does not exist as far as we are aware. But, the Book of the Dead is a different story, but we'll get to that later.
Benny oh benny… Someday you definitely won't [have kids].
They're so cute, camels. I rode both the regular camel in Egypt and a dromedary camel when I went to Mongolia. Rick is like bye-bye Benny. I just can’t, this movie is incredible, it's so hilarious, it's just so good. Then he sees the footprints. Was that Benny? That's impossible.
Impressing academic scholars is always a very hard thing to do because they can be very gate-keepy and it can just be annoying trying to go like, ‘oh yeah I'm worthy of it’. That’s one of the reasons why I left Academia. I might go back, I don't know
Jonathon is giving away their secrets; don't say that they have a key that you need.
I feel bad for that guy; he's just trying to save the world, he just happens to be in the very wrong place at the worst time.
Like everyone was dropping off the boats and they might be just eaten by crocodiles because they were still a lot of crocodiles in that River until they damned it then they then they either killed or moved all the crocodiles and hippopotamus to the southern part but you don't die.
“What are we going to do?!”
“Wait here, I'll go help!” he actually waits. I love that face, the acting is so good.
“Americans” Oh just cuz your country got its jollies out of killing a whole bunch of like different people around the world they're just killing people who are attacking them although they're killing them from far away so it's like how do that they don't attack them babe I don't know they might have just like took the key and ran did I panic I think not and then they all jump off the boat so what was the point.
Why do they call horses doggies I don't know I love this part looks to me like I've got all the horses hey Benny looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river shit he's right damn it obviously he doesn't say any of that because that would ruin the same update on my life right now I'm just texting you back Alan from work in Washington he asked how my eye was and look like in my eyes all day how's yours and why are you being a barter better dude why you didn't need to give your sister but you're going to Bartered better cuz you don't need to argue with the guy just barter better just look very good and I really want to do like that costume and I kind of did but it was more like kind of makes but it's like I can't find exactly what they want the movie so cosplay can be a little bit harder but I guess I could always buy like beats and stuff and do it just more behind the scenes random shit that's not going to be in the actual episode but they're cute the timers, yes, Evie they are adorable.
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Are still watching me the Magi this one is strong oh I feel like I was there I don't know where they filmed that part in Egypt probably wasn't cuz that looks like green screen or especially this guy is completely fake for sure well maybe not completely fake but I feel like it's fake this is like back in the '90s they didn't do like CGI for everything so I'm like that could actually be just a real place at sunrise but later than they definitely have like the CGI when it comes like when everything appears a nice camel camels are fast and they can have endurance more than horses do in the desert so.
In the sun rises and the thing just appears in the sky goes down that doesn't that might work in particular light but you'd still be able to see it in the dark it wouldn't just disappear and also if it was visible all time during the day you think that people would have found it before that cuz like why would you just why would you go there at night why would you travel at night at all camels are actually like really interesting to ride especially like not Dromedary camels the ones with one hump because then you're like you're kind of just like seated I mean you're riding them kind of the same way just like the Saddles are similar cuz like Saddles are always like pretty similar so you can split your legs around the sides and get like more control but then in this movie they're showing like having their legs in the front which I did actually kind of do when I was there just because I wanted the pictures of it but I wasn't wearing the right type of saddle for it I just kind of moved my legs more to the front but it was pretty awesome either way and then like we're riding the drum Dairy Campbell's in Mongolia was like a completely different experience because you are just straddling it and you have a hump in front of you and hump behind you but it was quite fun I liked it because he his camel was running into the the front camel I got lucky my camel was like, no I'm going to hang out back here. They did the test of clearing out the mirror to catch the Sun and light up a room trick on MythBusters and they found that it didn't really work that well. Definitely not as well as it did in the movie, it did work a little bit, but the light would go out pretty fast, it's dissipated pretty quickly. Plus, the mirror would have to be adjusted every 4 minutes because the Earth rotates, and the sun moves across the sky. Has actually like been 3,000 years since anyone got into the site, cuz there could be grave robbers and other stuff that happened, but it didn't look like anyone had gotten in it. The mummification chamber was for preserving their bodies so they could be full and completely alive in the afterlife, and then you just have to make it spooky, and have the scarabs running through the walls.
What caused the echoes by the legs of Anubis? This really should be a watch-along, but I don't know how to get them moving and I don't know how to get clips. Never take an archaeologist's tools, we will kill you without any guns. I love how clever Evie is, she say: “There are other places to dig,” the others are not even going to get there.
I mean we are busy so it's fine and he's going around I don't know why he's crying through that because it doesn't look like it as a high school but that was the director's Choice I'm sure that he stands up right there it's like why were you why were you crawling in the first place since f*cking weird and then they have like a carving of a guy screaming and pain with all the scarabs in them is God is not a thing blue gold not God well God isn't a thing either but blue gold is not a thing it probably would have been like either like a turquoise or science finds was the fiance, that they made a lot which is a rock that's been heat treated.
I learned all the Arabic I have ever known from this movie, and when I went to Egypt, I used it, and they're like “Oh my, you speak Arabic?” and “I'm like, no, not at all.”
Right so at 45 minutes and 24 seconds they've gotten to the scene that they're talking about or Evie is talking about the process of modification Rick says they rip out your guts and stuff them in jars now that is not completely true because they cut them out surgically and then they place them in jars in in Natron which drives them out and preserves them like the rest of your body so they are also preserved for the afterlife if they were left inside your body it would make the entire thing start to decompose way more rapidly and way worse then we're moving this other sacks of wetness Evie says that they take out your heart as well but they don't they leave your heart inside because that is where they believe all of your thought all your reason all your being your soul was in your heart and that was in your chest they left it there and then she says how they took out your brains they shove a red hot red hot poker up your nostrils and like scrambled around and rip it all out that's partially true again but not completely they do stick a red hot poker in your nose they break the bone at the top of your nose before your brain they do swish it around scrambling your brain a bit but that also liquefies it and then they drain it out through your ear not your nose or I guess they but they drain it out so your nose and possibly also through your ear other than they have to break your eardrum because otherwise nothing would come out mostly through your nose.
And all of these things have very specialized equipment and you're dead when you do this and I don't need to be put down for notification because I don't need my body to preserve technically forever but I do want to be either thrown out into the woods or the ocean or made into a statue in the ocean with my bones all intact and I'll be a statue and then I'll give life to a coral reef more for the extras.
Being placed on the feet of Anubis you think you would be very important not just something very naughty because Anubis was well Anubis was part of the judgment so you'd want to make sure that someone with keen judgment would like keeping from going anywhere but then that was also toth A god of wisdom and well writing and there is another goddess it was the goddess of poetry and I can't remember her name It looks like some sort of luck oh my gosh there's something that someone had a key maybe you shouldn't have said anything
The workers were melted with pressurized salt acid from Seti I, which may have been the old word for hydrochloric acid. But that wasn’t the only chemical they would have needed to worry about. Ancient Egyptian engineers would sometimes cover the tomb floors with hematite powder, a sharp metallic dust designed to cause a slow and painful death to those who inhaled enough of it. Modern-day archaeologists have had to leave rooms, only to return donning HAZMAT suits and respirators. Other real booby traps include pits, head wires, labriths, and in China crossbows and a lake of mercury (though that last one isn’t supposed to have been a trap).
Th mirror trick would have only worked for maybe 4 minutes before having baby adjusted and that's what they found on his Busters I was kind of short changing it a little bit Well they're doing their fighting thing I was just reading a lot of factual errors at the mummy has and one of them is like a 3,000-year-old like paper we're just fall apart completely of being handled which is completely true. Their part after the fight, Rick and Evie are looking so much like a romance novel cover, and it's just “They treasure water, not gold”, and then that American dude with the glasses is just like walks in and just like ruins the whole thing.
They're pulling out the chest that is cursed those guys standing with one leg forward one leg back which means they're alive and a bunch of Egyptian tests and just like it curses they do happen in Egyptian tombs sometimes but they're pretty rare and I mean for this story it would make sense that you definitely don't want to wake this guy up or you'll be cursing you'll die so don't it's a good freaking thing that they got someone that can actually read ancient Egypt because if not they were just break it open and die anyway and probably made by go so fast and they probably just like curse everyone in the room which includes all the diggers and shit costume it's funny weird generous see they haven't said this the temp that they place so maybe that got brought up into the curse after they happened still that would make any goddamn sense so I'm just and boom all that coughing shit where did all that come from and then there's a sarcophagus they pulled out and are opening the circus the running the inscriptions she said are scratched off like those those sex would be part of the Book of the Dead so that and okay where the f*ck did I mean I guess if like all that things go forward like you're being eaten for I don't know a couple years maybe or well maybe more cuz I'm the scarabs could f*ck and then and then have more babies I would continue to eat you keep me dead within a few days and he had no water so I definitely be dead and then like you be decomposing for over 3,000 years I don't think he'd be juicy at all but I get that that's part of the story and death is only the beginning how did he freaking carve that if he had no well I mean you can carve things when you don't have eyes but also when you're being tortured basically by scarabs and being slowly eaten I don't know how we would find the wherewithal to do that but sounds like he's a strong person and they found the Book of the Dead and then they found they kicked down the sarcophagus or not the circus but like the Box and they have four and then one kind of in the background but they have that like very fussy so I can't tell what it is bad he's trying to open the book of the day which happens to me the same key lock as the evil mummy which also would not make any sense why would you connect with you that way but I guess it's like having your password on the computer being the same for like all of them so I get it it's like what scares are flush years there are none but they probably don't even live that long bugs do not live long maybe like maybe a few years sure but like god damn it, no, and then they have multiple Generations so like the whole thing should be filled like realistically the whole thing would be filled with bug skeletons with the exoskeletons of beetles and they all like they if especially if he's still Juicy then a lot of the generations of scarabs would still be able to live in the coffin while they're eating.
Skipping forward a hot second cuz I would need to just rewrite the entire thing and I don't remember what I said So Evie just like stole the book from the dad from the other British archaeologist person and he's like oh nothing bad ever happened to reading a book he's like sure ideas for him from reading books but ideas should be shared. So she's chanting and she's reading and now the mommy looks a lot less juicy, nothing because they had to digitally like remove all those parts of his body because before they just have like a mannequin I mean they could have still done it with a mannequin they just would have to move it with poles or something they could have done it and it would look less weird like I remember being scared of the first part the first time I saw it but then like after that it's like this isn't scary at all and like obviously that the what what annoys me is just like the 10 plagues of Egypt happened like two or three generations later after well I guess not after this took place but like maybe it would be like especially cuz Ramses's live like 70 plus years or like 80 plus years and have like 70 children with many different wives.
It's like the Book of the Dead that is a that is an interesting whole story that one it's not a book if you listen to my other Egyptian centered episodes then you would know then you might remember that the Book of the Dead is a series of pyramid text coffin text and Scrolls that not we're not all come by compiled per se like not actually but I compiled by scientists thousands of years later be kind of a compendium book it did not exist as a book in ancient times and there's no actual spells to bring people back to life or anything like that there's it's the ways that you get into the Afterlife into your afterlife how it tells you tricks and tips to get through your your pyramid without falling in a trap or mainly for it's for your soul to get out of your pyramid into the door into through the through the car door it like you join raw in the in the sailing bars so you like so you're like helping him maybe you go through different like the 12 stages of or the 12 gates going to the afterlife Each of which has a task that you have to complete and these pyramid texts The Book of the Dead was a trick to help you get through it it's like a cheat sheet of how you get to the afterlife and it may have had some extra magic in quotes to help her to get other gods to do what you needed them to do like Anubis but that wasn't really magic you just you just helped you they never show like that you drive him or anything just like places to wait on the feather side so it equals out your heart and it gives you like tips about what to say to the gods when they're asking you the 42 questions it's just stuff like that it's a cheat sheet for getting to your afterlife is what it is and it's Illustrated so that makes it even better but no it's not a black book that brings people back to life although that would be cool.
No harm ever came from renting a book oh man you can wish you could tell so many Nazis about that later but they would never believe you and a lot of people today it's like all these books need to be banned or burned no harm ever came from your book and a while in this case reading about reading it out loud definitely not good reading it in general fine so read out loud it's not like Rick would have understood the ancient Egyptian either or anyway
and it's the first plague the locusts which are just grasshoppers actually locusts are just grasshoppers when they swarm and that could be cuz like mostly because that's the breeding season and they need to eat they don't eat people so and it seems like they're not eating people anyway because that egyptologist dude is covered with them and he's fine but like all the diggers kind of disappear so it's like what the f*ck
Ironically, the guy that can't see that gives us eyes to Imhotep, well gets his eyes stolen by the mummy and that's probably why Imhotep can't even tell what that Evie is not cuz Anksunemun’s he's freaking blind I wonder if he heals it later just by the whole thing of the magic of his resurrection and his life sucking but they were that many beetles they'd probably be cannibals as well because they don't get enough food at all like there aren't enough people that are like no one has got to have enough really and so it's like if they swarm and eat people that quickly and they if they only eat people there's no way that they could survive as a species… they must be cannibals.
Mr Burns, the American with the glasses (or without in this case) turns around with his eyes gone. I couldn't even tell that his eyes were missing. I'm just thinking, wait what is on his eyes cause it like it didn't look empty holes it looked like they put just red goofy stuff on his like over them but that's not bad see squinting how you saying tongue then you need your tongue to say tongue otherwise otherwise you just go gone I'm trying to make a cake and they left so much like flesh on him and he's like what what I don't know just I love their reactions.
So just going back for a second, so I can definitely have this recorded in text on the wall behind them when they encounter Imhotep the first time, not as a dead, dead mummy, Khepri, or her male counterpart, is carved on the wall (Figure below). Khepri is a dung beetle who moves the sun from one side of the world to the other everyday I don't think that's like really significant however it's really interesting the fact that the scarab beetles that are eating them there's also a really good scarab beetle that is a goddess and is a much beloved goddess.
The Mummy screenshop (IMDB 1999)
Once they get out they see the Magi and Ardock Bay and he's like they feared him for 3000 years since like well okay cool makes sense and there's like and it's like don't worry I got him no mortal weapon can kill this creature how do you never tried he's never come back to life so you don't actually know that it couldn't and I mean they're right but they don't know you could try bombing him and just Smithereens and then like and separating all the pieces just like they did with us just like that with Osiris maybe that would have worked to kill him too who knows I don't that would have been a very different story so I kind of want to see that story though maybe a different mummy but the same movie doesn't really matter evil Undead being that's not a zombie or whatever dad just chop them up blow them up like when it when everything else fails blow him up and separate all the pieces and bury them and several places around the world and then you can have a sequel wearing like 2,000 years or whatever someone like an archaeologist oh hey look there's like this piece and it has like the same writing as this other piece oh my god let's let's put the piece right together and then it comes all powerful again but what they don't know is that his penis fell off and then they have to like destroy him with his penis I don't know they just feel it would just be like some weird like Osiris like evil Osiris kind of thing it's my movie pitch idea.
So you don't know how to kill him, he said have to go on the hunt and find a way to kill him. If they don't know how to kill him, how do they know what doesn't work, but I mean, still there, right… But I mean.
Here's when Benny encounters and it's freaking hilarious it's like are you going to make out it's like you weren't there Christianity doesn't do shit doesn't exist yet wanted to do anything anyway but about some point yes like it's nothing works for like smiting him or anything now he's doing Arabic I believe then he does I don't know what language it is but it's beautiful and then there's Hindu on it and then he pulls up the Jewish symbol and the only reason he stops is because it's the language of the slaves and he's like oh because you can speak to it the poor people they're only like two major languages basically in Egypt at the time in the movie, and he speaks to the poor people, so he can do it and there's like a lion jar which I don't it does not exist so that's interesting it's broken because it's not real. The language of the slaves who weren't slaves. I'm not saying that there weren't Hebrew people there, but they weren’t, and I'm not saying that Egypt didn't have slaves, but their slaves were generally prisoners of war, like most nations back then.
Okay I read that the Royal Air corps never existed there's a royal Air Force they RAF and then it became like something elseSo was theSo was the royal flying Corps until 1918 after that it became the Royal Air Force never Royal Airport it did go to the rafr in Cambridge and it was so cool the they had all the smoke like they would like have their lighters and matches up and like right their names and the other words and stuff like that like with like dates on it and it's just it's so cool that they have stuff from back then back in the twenties and thirties.
I know he was wearing a mask so we can walk around the city, but the guy's blind, so obviously he can't tell. The blood thing was I the first plague that Moses enacted, so the plague order was started differently and locusts were later (number 8) and then you have the firestorm which is in the Bible and shit it's just like hail. look it's a meteor shower or meteorite shower cuz they're all are hitting the ground which is something that could happen at some point I love you these outfits and they first get the mummified modern dude and what's up is rebuilding himself it's like you saved me from the undead I think I got to kiss you so it seems to know that it's not I'm not in the moon now so we might have healed his eyes.
Why isn't a solar eclipse any more special than making it rain fire? He's also holding it longer, which is really weird and those guys outside, if you're watching the movie along with the commentary. I don't know how you would be doing that, but it's like they're looking out into the Sun and they're going to go blind.
Where does the mask go? He lost it; he's just wrapped up in a cloth. Man, that chair throw was awesome.
He's got the baboon which is also a animal of top or thought and there's did the Flies which are annoying but also they're not like horse flies they never said that they were supplies I mean they could have been but they never said that they would hurt people, just annoying.
I always love to see you seeing him sucked away in the shadow it was so cool, show it but don't show it and it's close but not quite. How do you get a scarab in his body but it was so cool he could turn into sand which comes up again later well actually it doesn't because he controls the same he's not the same but now he's the same which I think was in part of the original story as well but I'm not sure I can't remember now it's just fantasizing he's just fantasizing now he's just fantasizing and the kittens are and then he doesn't his face falls apart again. Kitty!
What myth I've never heard of any of these myths that they're talking about, but that's probably because it's a movie, and also the museum just happens to have the stela of text or with the text needed.
The plague of boils and sores also happens to hypnotizes all of them into doing Imhotep’s bidding, so that's a thing and okay when he's walking down the street, it looks like that large carving in the background is Set. Set is a god of chaos, disorder, and evil. However, he wasn't always. In the Old Kingdom, Set was stationed on the Re’s solar barge and he was one of the heroes at one of the gates because he killed one of the snakes, Apophis, every night. The Benbridge scholars could never find the books so, weirdly they wrote it all down, just in case this happens just in case the movie happens and the cursed mummies that they don’t know exist comes back and they have to have a contingency plan. People need protection and they needed to be able to get rid of possibility of mummies so the ancient Egyptians assumed that future people would be so dumb and so careless that they need to have the gold book to kill Imhotep. That could be a very interesting prequel, from both pasts.
I wish I knew if he was speaking ancient Egyptian I mean we can't know exactly how it was pronounced because they didn't have vowels written down so we just kind of guess sometimes like we can guess I academically like educational guesses based on like the symbols like like telling me because of what the Greek said later and that's how we got the whole Egyptian language because of the Rosetta Stone so I wonder if they speaking in ancient Egyptian by what they say or just making stuff up that's what happens when I don't know the language. He has no idea what you just said.
I mean the rest of that could go down the sewer it's like now they don't even have the sewer there anymore because they're just surrounding the guy they're in a giant mob and no one's going down see that's his real Air Force so maybe he was just really drunk and he's been serving for a long time and he just mix it up which I mean he was drunk and he's old so it looks like he's been in the service for a long time and it's the twenties so he would have been probably like serving for Morton been serving for more than 10 years presumably so and now he's ever core again so maybe he just he's not drunk now though.
They really should be wearing face masks or goggles, at least a cloth over their mouths, it's a lot of dust, so now he is the tornado. Later, he's just standing outside the sandstorm, controlling it.
I think mainly they have him doing it that way that is controlling the sand and not is the sandstorm that takes break down because then she can't distract him if he is a sand she can't kiss him in like mess with his brain and your brother don't forget your brother so you just lifts the sand now I mean it's so freaking awesome it's just not what had happened before but I mean he's got powers over a lot of shit so like why not saying too and why would he want to be whipped away by chance by a sand tornado when he could just be a tornado and be like really nice and clean and stuff afterwards.
That face, Rick is literally shooting at sand, he looks like a raptor or a T-Rex, so adorablely cringy.
And now you can see the cliff and everything that coming after is on or in front of and it's daytime so it's just like I think it's just a just a cool trick that they wanted or it's a mirage that they wanted to show at sunrise so they could go at any time during the day or night but just just fun it's part of the tourist experience just the first time you go though otherwise to touristy.
Quicksand does not suck you down that far I don't think it would suck down an entire plane, but again, dramatics it is a movie. It's cool, it just isn't realistic. But least it doesn't suck down the entire back of the plane.
So in the back of the shot there is the naturalistic style of King Akenaten his wife Nefertiti and their children being post playing like at play at rest with the sun over them that is a normal that isn't a very common amarna work of art which already did already happen by this time because that it was during the 18th Dynasty but in the sun they have the evil scarabs that have that blue gold painting over them and also in the lines for the sun's rays that usually have just little tiny hands that sometimes hold on it instead has a little circles with more Scarab skeletons or with the scarabs in the arms are supposed to be giving life to people and these little monster scarabs take life away so it's almost it's kind of reciprocal kind of thing where this is the City of the Dead this is bad like you don't get like here it's taken away from you so that's kind of an interesting look into it by the set designers.
And the one that the mummies are breaking out of since they're breaking out of them like where the where the sculptures of his priests are might imply that they were buried right behind the wall but why they would have done that and built a whole area for that is an interesting question so did they build all of that after they died? I don't know
Not sure there's a lot of gold but it's probably all just like gold covered gold plated because that's like most of artifacts in general like gold wasn't generally I'm not going to say always but it wasn't always or wasn't generally used and it's just giant solid form it's not like the solid gold statues but sometimes maybe depends how big the statues and then a bunch of mummies are just bursting out of the floor so we're the ones that came out of the wall higher prestige at least guns work on him them.
After everything you see and you're scared by a rat but more scared of the mummy right next to her I'm sure. If the Egyptians really ancient Egyptians wanted these found, break in case of curse attack or break in case of mummy attack, then why the heck would they put the salt acid (Hydrochloric acid) in the Statue of Horus as well? It was in a cutscene, but that's probably why they didn't want it in even though it was a quick scene.
All the canopic jars that are real are full and then the one that's broken is the one, that doesn't really have a head, and it's one that's not real since they never remove the heart.
And like what was in the heart was part of the Soul and there is a cutscene and that's why it's all smoking or like smoking and it's got the scarabs on it if I do a cosplay of Evie again or if I do want to break or whatever I got to get I got to make one of the books and like as of as just like a box so I just got to get like a box maybe for Halloween.
I think the only real reason he needs to bring Evie with him is because enough is so degraded and she needs to be regenerated because like he did bring her back before when she was dead without killing somebody but then he did have a knife so who is he going to kill tonight for the Amazon but like he didn't have us he didn't have a second maybe he was going to kill one of the his priests he's like this has nothing to do with that Joy history it's just the question like most of the history Department was just like at the very beginning.
I don't know what the Cartouche has on it, but it might be like a Seti thing. I'm not sure it looks like it has a pineapple on it, and that's just kind of funny.
Why would a ‘controlling mummies’ spell be on the book of the living, especially on the cover? Convenience!
One of the best first nopes.
So they have the whole thing the back and forth about it's a bird a store but the last symbol and Evie said it's a metal it's a manifest so I don't know if it is part of it and then Jonathan He does say “ametaphus” Jonathan says a metaphys and a metaphase would not be one word because Egyptian hieroglyphs stand for like Egyptian hieroglyphs are more like Chinese characters and are syllables more they're more like syllables than they are an ideas than they are letters or even full words the stork actually would be Bob as if the store represents the bird and also when you combine it into three birds it represents power or it means power but the word or the how you would say it would be not a metaphase But it's the logogram of the spirit or soul is the ba bird.
How is the enchantment for getting rid of a guy's soul, his immortality? How is that so simple? I mean, I'm not the gods… It's two words. And it goes into a bunch of liquid which is where the souls reside it seems but that is like I said at the beginning that is not accurate for Egyptian mythology if you're in if you're in the great if you're in the you're in the afterlife you're in the afterlife if you are bad you are devoured and you do not exist anymore it looks like they were trying to go for more of the the river sticks kind of thing where souls can get caught up or like just like in Hades maybe stuck.
And why the heck would there be a let's destroy everything button it always seems to be that movies and video games, let's just destroy it and then Jonathan dropped the book let's go everyone has to stop once except for Rick well I mean he does that because he wants to save Benny so everyone has their reasons for slowing down the party but they still make it out they roll the good enough on their dexterity checks to run fast or their Athletics I guess they're at they ran fast enough they dash and they kept dashing and it's like come on let's go and even if they didn't they were able to persuade them I guess and Benny was just too slow …goodbye benny. He got his come-up-ins.
Especially and I and Benny is speaking Hungarian I think because that's what people online said online said but after this whole place falls to the ground and completely collapses and disappears under the sand they're scarabs are going to have to become cannibals if they're not already because they're going to have they're not going to have any meat anymore, they're just not going to have like any meat anymore so stinks for them.
So at the end they do profit off of the stealing of ancient artifacts so not great but it was definitely different time and most of it I'm sure would have well it would probably would have gone to the camera Museum if they stayed in Egypt but they moved it they moved to England in the second they were in England in the second movie.
That's the end of the Mummy the end credits have a lot of really beautiful images of Egyptian like Temple works of Arts and obviously I haven't seen all of them I don't know if they're all real or if they are I wouldn't say computer generated or AI because that didn't really exist back then not the same way it does now yes they probably just took they probably just took pictures of different piece of art and then scroll through them and stuff like that scan them and use them it is all one work of art which I've never actually noticed before because they do cut in parts of like Darkness but they're just scrolling down one large Stila or one large wall and it has like with a lot of people with cattle ranchers and leaders and all that kind of stuff so I might be like an afterlife thing which would be cool.
Mummia Addition FUN FACT
"Mummia" can refer to several things, primarily related to ancient Egyptian mummies and their use in traditional medicine. It can refer to the substance of a mummy used medicinally, a medicinal preparation derived from mummies, or even the mummies themselves. Historically, mummia was used as a purported cure-all in European medicine, particularly during the Renaissance. In historical contexts, mummia often refers to a substance derived from mummies, believed to have medicinal properties.
The use of mummia as a medicine was based on a misunderstanding. European scholars initially misinterpreted the Arabic term "mumia," which referred to a type of bitumen, as referring to Egyptian mummies. This led to the belief that ground-up mummies could cure various ailments. The practice of using mummia as medicine eventually faded as its ineffectiveness became apparent and scholars realized the error in translation. However, the fascination with mummies, particularly in the Victorian era, led to unwrapping parties and other forms of public display.
