The Mummy Essay

For the project Hollywood and History I watched the movie called “The Mummy.” This film was filmed in 1999. In the opening scene the narrator gives us an overview of the supposed city of Thebes. He then goes on to talk about how a priest named Imhotep is in a relationship with Anck Su Namun. She was Pharaoh Seti’s forbidden mistress. Whoever touches her will be killed. Once the Pharaoh finds out what’s going on Anck Su and Imhotep stab him. Anck Su then stabs herself, leaving Imhotep to be captured by the Pharaoh’s guards and given the worst curse known as Hom Dai. There is a battle between two different groups which leaves Rick O’Connell caught by the enemy. Before he was shot a sand like force caused the enemies to flee. Jonathan Carnahan shows his sister a box and map that shows a map that leads to the city of the dead. He admits that it was stolen from Rick. They go to save him from being killed, and he agrees to lead them to the city. Evelyn wants to find the book of the living, but they end up finding the remains of Imhotep buried under a statue of Anubis. The American treasure hunters discover a chest and found the cursed book of the dead. They also find the five Canopic jars.
This film differentiates from the material taught in the academic setting, and many examples are shown throughout the movie.
In the

opening scene when narrator is talking he introduces us to the city of Thebes. From reading the text and attending class, I was taught that the city of Thebes is further south of Giza. I think the reason for this is because the narrator focused on two main cities in the opening. “Thebes” meaning the city of the living, and “Hamunaptra” meaning the city of the dead. The reason being is because the city of Thebes is not as built up or recognizable as Giza. Giza contains many of the most remarkable and studied land marks in Egyptian history, making it a better scene for the movie. The director of the movie possibly assumed that a non-scholar would pick up on the fact that the name of the city was switched.
Another falsity that I picked up on was the burial of Imhotep. First, because the priest was hated and was a criminal, he would not have been mummified. Being mummified was only for the good, and people that deserved the afterlife. I think that since he was a criminal he would have been more likely to be killed more violently. The reason the director didn’t follow that more closely was probably to keep with the plot of the movie. If he was killed more violently Imhotep wouldn’t have been able to receive the curse because the body needs to be intact to go through to the afterlife. I also picked up on how the mummification process was flawed.
In Egyptian history the mummification was a sacred process. First the body is washed to clean off dirt, dead skin, etc. The body is then cut at the gut and is drained of bodily fluid. During this step the major organs are placed in Canopic jars. The brain is then whisked, the body is stuffed with salt, and natron salt. The body is wrapped and sits for forty days before buried. Family members also write spells on the body wrapping. In the movie Imhotep was wrapped alive in cloth. It also appears that his tongue was cut off. I assume the director did this because it was the Pharaohs way of torturing Imhotep. Scarab beetles were also dumped on Imhotep and it looked like they were eating him alive. This contradicts academic teaching because the beetles ate dung, not humans. This was probably the director trying to get a scare out of the audience, and to show the extent of the Pharaohs wrath on Imhotep.
I noticed that Imhotep’s sarcophagus was locked with some type of advanced key. This key looked way too high-tech for this time period. It looks like it was made with some type of metal and popped open in a very sophisticated way. Also for the sarcophagus to lock like it did, it would have to be built in a complicated manor. It would have to contain some type of metal bar system that would rotate in order to open and close. This is a very unrealistic aspect in the movie. Many people who haven’t studied ancient Egypt wouldn’t pick up on it, but I was able to pick it up on it with only a week spent on the unit.
The narrator also stated that the organs were put into five Canopic jars instead of four. In this movie the fifth Canopic jar was used for Anck Su’s heart. It is the Egyptian belief that the heart is left in the body because it was weighed at the scale of Ma ’at in the underworld. Also, the jars represented the four sons of Horus, not five. Later in the movie when Imhotep was awoken he uses the heart in the fifth Canopic jar, along with a war chant to awaken his mummy priests. The director needed to add an extra Canopic jar for the plot of the movie. I understand why he did because the jars are meant to hold the organs and preserve them, but it does not match up with the ancient history of Egypt.
The textbook does not talk about a city of the dead called Hamunaptra. This would be another example of how the director of the movie needed to add something to go along with the plot. The city of the dead also plays a part in entertaining the audience with some action that goes on there.
Some other minor things I noticed was that in the opening scene Anubis head was pointed down. In Egypt the gods would look up and straight ahead, this is show in hierarchal style.
Through my studies I learned Imhotep was named the architect to Djoser who was alive before the construction of the pyramids in Giza.

Imhotep was credited with the creation of the step pyramid. This difference in time leads me to believe that Imhotep should have been dead by the time Pharaoh Seti was in power. I am not sure why the director needed Imhotep to be one of the main characters in the film. I also question if these three figures were all related and significant to each other during the times they were alive. If the director randomly pulled three significant figures together from Egyptian history, I wonder why he picked them, and not

others.
I think the movie is different from the historical understanding for a main reason. The reason being is that the director needed something to entertain the audience. The reality of these type of events happening in the Egyptian world were very slim. I find it near impossible that reading passages from the Book of dead would resurrect a mummy that would cause a serious threat to people. If the director were to just stick to every facet of Egyptian history he would have an extremely boring film that only high scholars of ancient Egyptian history would want to watch. This movie did quite well in the box office, and got many stellar reviews. The movie was action packed and interesting, and it kept me on the edge of my seat. The mummy was one of the first films the depicted ancient Egyptian legends like it did. This is key to why it was very an entertaining movie.
The director did have to sacrifice certain known facts in Egyptian history to make the movie come together the way it did. I do think that the director did not do deep enough research on some of the key points in Egyptian history because some of the obvious ones were over looked in the first scene of the movie. The statue of Anubis needed to have his head facing up and forward. I can’t think of a reason why the director would not follow something so simple unless he merely over looked it.
I watched this film many years ago and remember thinking that it was one of the coolest movies I ever watched. I was probably twelve at the time I watched this movie and had very minimal knowledge about the Egyptian culture and the things that they followed in everyday life. Going back and watching this movie again was such an eye opener. Having just had a test on the Egyptian material it was nailed into my head.
It surprised me how well I could pick up the many faults I went over above without consulting my text book and notes. This exercise has made me think to be more careful when watching movies about the past. It has made me realize how easy it can be to pick out discrepancies in major motion pictures. From now on when watching movie about an ancient culture I plan to focus on the movie and see what mistake are made in the directing process. “The Mummy” is just one of many moves that this exercise can be done on. Ever year movie directors shove extremities into the movie. These extremities can contain many historical faults. This paper made me consider how easy it is to be fooled by what the director shoves into these types of movies. Without truly analyzing certain aspects of movies, we can fall into a trap of believing false truths of an ancient culture. I believe society as a whole needs to be more conscious of the false information that is in these big Hollywood movies because having a society that can point out these common misconceptions will strengthen our understanding of many very important ancient cultures.