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The year 536 bce had been a rather hectic business year for Iturech, or at least one that was very well documented in P. Louvre E 7834, 7836, 7838, and 7843. Choachytes needed to collect as many mummies as possible.Many mummies meant much work, and much work meant high income. In 536 Iturech had an interest in at least five tombs in the Theban necropolis on the west bank of the Nile.

This chapter focuses on the reconstruction of the portrait mummy of Hermione, which was excavated in 1911. Hermione lived during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius and belonged to the Greek immigrants of ancient Egypt who were descendants of the soldiers who have fought Alexander the Great and the Ptolomies. Hermione is believed to have been a school teacher, as her coffin portrait bears the Greek inscription ‘Hermione grammatike’. To reconstruct the face of Hermione, x-ray imaging processes were first employed to gain vital information without moving the painted cartonnage and wrappings of the mummy. Computed tomography and CT scanning technology was also used to provide a measurement of the 3D distribution of x-ray absorption coefficients throughout the scanned volume. This more advanced form of scanning allowed for the creation of 3D reconstruction of the volume. For the 3D reconstruction of the face of Hermione, four methods were necessary. These were the acquisition of 3D data on what lies inside the wrappings, the 3D reconstruction of the skull, the reconstruction of the soft tissues over the skull, and the application of texture to the reconstructed facial surface.

For most people mummies are synonymous with Egypt. However, it is less well known that the ancient Egyptians mummified animals as well as humans. For the ancient Egyptians, the act of mummification ensured that the body of a creature would be preserved forever, and thus they conferred the potential for eternal life upon it. Throughout history, however, animal mummies, like their human counterparts, had little value as artifacts. Many animal mummies have survived, and are now valued as sources of information on the culture and environment of ancient Egypt. Broadly speaking, animal mummies can be divided into four different types: beloved pets, buried with their owners; victual mummies, consisting of funerary food offerings for humans; sacred animals, worshiped during their lifetime and mummified with pomp upon their death; and votive mummies, dedicated as offerings at the shrines of specific gods to whom these animals were sacred.

This concluding chapter addresses the recurring themes of ancient Egypt and the mummy in popular culture. The treasures of Tutankhamun had been unpacked and examined by the public, directly or through reproduced images. These images are those of age-old artefacts, pharaohs, Egyptian princesses, and mummies. The names of the principal characters change: sometimes they are Imhotep and Anck-es-en-Amon, other times Kharis and Ananka, but they are always recognisable. Moreover, these characters return in many different forms. Ultimately, the living mummy has joined the vampires, the zombies, the knife-gloved killers, the ghost girls in TV sets, and all those other monsters created in horror films.

This chapter discusses the portrayal of mummies and ancient Egypt in fantastic literature. While not necessarily the basis of a coherent subgenre, mummies were a recurring theme in the supernatural literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as authors of the fantastic found their imaginations fired by the latest developments in Egyptology. Stories from this period often differ significantly from the mummy films that would later develop in Hollywood, but certain aspects of them are nonetheless echoed by Universal Pictures' subgenre-defining 1932 film The Mummy. The chapter then describes haunted mummies and walking mummies. There are three writers in particular who stand out as the most likely influences upon Universal's The Mummy: Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. Rider Haggard.

This chapter explores the horror and fantasy in The Mummy (1932). Universal Pictures' treatments of the vampire and werewolf themes had specific bodies of folklore to draw upon for inspiration, but as The Mummy featured what was for all intents and purposes a new variety of monster, the studio had a blank slate. The film not only introduced audiences to the living mummy Imhotep but also transported them to an entire world of gods, magic, and curses. As well as taking inspiration from weird fiction and popular Egyptology, The Mummy frequently uses contemporary horror films as reference points, synthesising both old and new to create the latest movie monster. In doing so, it established most of the conventions that would be re-used in later mummy films.

This chapter highlights the legacy of The Mummy (1932). Ever since the 1930s, the plot elements and iconography of the film have been re-used, re-interpreted, and re-worked in myriad forms. Universal Pictures' follow-ups to The Mummy began eight years after the original film came out, by which time the studio's horror output had lost some of its spark from the early half of the 1930s. First came The Mummy's Hand in 1940, then The Mummy's Tomb in 1942 and The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse in 1944. Eventually, Britain's Hammer Films obtained full remake rights to the Universal horror filmography. The chapter then looks at other mummy films made outside Universal and Hammer. In the era of franchise blockbusters, The Mummy remains a viable cinematic brand. While the original Universal Mummy series ended in 1955 and the Hammer revival in 1971, the 1990s saw Universal attempt to recreate The Mummy for a new generation.

About one thousand mummy portraits have survived from Roman Egypt. They constitute a unique record in colour of a group of individuals, many resident in the towns and villages of the Fayum, but others living in the settlements of the Nile Valley and even on the Mediterranean littoral. This chapter explores the changes in representation of these persons in mummy portraits of the later 3rd and 4th centuries ad, when the educated elite of Hellenic cultural affiliation were concentrated in settlements in the Nile valley.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of The Mummy (1932). While the setting and concepts of The Mummy were relatively new to horror cinema as it existed in 1932, the film's creative team nonetheless had plenty of sources from which to take inspiration. Universal Pictures' previous horror films had generally taken place against a European backdrop informed by English Gothic and German Expressionism. The Mummy, on the other hand, turned to Egypt and its ancient history for inspiration. In doing so, the film hit upon what was, as far as cinema was concerned, a fresh variety of monster: a living mummy. Thanks to The Mummy, the cloth-wrapped Egyptian revenant would join the vampire, the werewolf, and Frankenstein's Monster as a horror icon, one that would appear in innumerable sequels, imitations, and parodies. The chapter then details the plot of The Mummy.

This chapter describes the critical reception of The Mummy (1932). When the film was screened, professional film critics were intrigued by the central figure of Boris Karloff, the actor who had been transformed into a living mummy. The Los Angeles Times even offered a prescient take that foresaw Karloff's future place in the film pantheon. As for the film itself, however, the critical reception was more lukewarm. Critics who had grown tired of horror cinema found little in The Mummy to change their opinions. The chapter then looks at re-evaluations and later evaluations of the film. Critics continue to find weaknesses, but they also continue to find rewarding new ways of approaching The Mummy. On the whole, The Mummy has managed to stand firm despite early critical indifference and subsequent changes in audience tastes. The film's position as the start of a subgenre has ensured that The Mummy retains immortality as a popular culture artefact.

The clattering sound of a child’s shoes across the cold stone floors; the echo is magnificent. I am nine or ten years old and I make my way through the prehistoric exhibition at the National Museum in Copenhagen. The dimly lit display cases are filled with arrowheads, heavy beads of perforated amber, funnel beakers, and bronze artefacts. I reach my goal, the alluring Bronze Age oak cists where the buried men and women from the heaths of Jutland are looking back at me. I touch the glass. My eyes wander over their reddened hair and their clothes, stained in deep shades of peat brown. My eyes seek theirs in the hollow orbits of their skulls. I close mine and imagine a life thousands of years ago. My small hand moves across the glass, leaving an almost invisible trace. Small fingerprints; a dreaming child’s gesture. I would stay there forever, dreaming of the past. Feeling it. I know that it was moments like this, when I could see and feel the humanity of the past that made me want to become an archaeologist. The immediate encounter with an individual from the past is a privileged moment. For a brief moment our destinies cross paths, and hundreds, even thousands of years are transcended. Scenes like this one, of children gazing at the dead and seeing the past, are not unusual. In museums across Europe, the archaeological findings from burials, including both the human remains and the items that accompanied the dead, are often displayed with pride and confidence. The public expects this and is drawn in with fascination to stand face-to-face with the deep past. Beyond this, the display of the dead and of death itself, with all of the allure and drama that accompany it, becomes a privileged locus for pedagogy and communication. But while this confident attitude towards the display of the dead may be typical in Europe, it is not as evident in North America. In North American museums, it is rare to see human remains from archaeological contexts displayed in any form (exception seems to be given to Egyptian mummies, which still are prominently displayed by many institutions that have them among their collections).

Work carried out on the animal mummies in the Egyptian Museum, as well as in other collections, shows that, like humans, animals were mummified in a variety of ways throughout Egyptian history. This chapter describes different methods employed for mummification. Mummification basically involves the evisceration and desiccation of the body. Desiccation is done using common salt or natron that draws out the bodily fluids leaving the dry husk. The second method of mummification involves the washing out of the intestines, and drying the body, using natron, before anointing and wrapping it. The third method of mummification uses no incision for evisceration. Rather, oil of cedar or pine was injected into the anus, the orifice plugged, and the liquid left to melt the viscera. A fourth method used on some animal mummies involved defleshing. A fifth variation on mummification involved the total immersion of live birds in vats of melted resin/pitch/bitumen.

The author of this chapter made a decision to study the animal mummy collection, and initiated the Animal Mummy Project, in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Egyptian Museum, with Nasry Iskander being the designated collaborator from the latter institution. This project was one of the first modern, large-scale, non-destructive studies of animal mummies of all species undertaken anywhere in the world. The chapter's author's primary interest lay in studying the process of mummification when applied to animals, to see if chronological and geographical changes/particularities could be mapped, to understand the different categories of animal mummies, and to learn more about the ancient Egyptian environment. The ultimate aim of this project, after the mummies had been examined, was to conserve them, to produce a new, updated Catalogue Général volume as the original one had been rendered obsolete, as well as to reinstall the mummies in a more sympathetic museum environment.

The construction of tombs for the nobility of Akhenaten's court began soon after the Amarna was occupied, but a sheer amount of work was required in building these tombs. As a result, the tombs are more or less unfinished. Versions of Aten-name are found in their decoration which highlights the monuments, although the order of construction is not clear. However, two tombs, Huya and Meryre II, stand out having a specifically dated relief, which bulk their decoration after Year 12. A version of Meryre II had been carved on the right hand wall of the principal hall tomb-chapel but half of the tomb was still undecorated. The sculptor used the standard pattern in most unfinished tombs in Amarna to decorate the walls on either side of the entrance. This tomb is where Meryre II intended his mummy ultimately to lie.

The process of converting a flat motion picture to 3D is explained using a specific Large Format film, Mummies 3D, as a case study. Director Keith Melton discusses the process. 3D conversion artist Tim Sassoon is interviewed.

Psamtek I successfully resisted an incursion by western tribesmen in his early years, and by the end of his reign he was successfully campaigning in the Levant against the Babylonian Empire, the new powerful force in the east. During his fifty-four reign Psamtek reformed the political landscape of Egypt, politically reunifying the country and reforming the administration. This reforming spirit of times was also reflected in art and architecture and one of the most salient features of the culture of this period is archaism. Standards of workmanship in the visual arts, particularly in sculpture, was high. There was a nationwide temple building and renovation programme, and monumental elite tombs were now being constructed such as that of Montuemhat, mayor of Thebes. Changes in funerary practices were evident and the cult of divine animals underwent a considerable degree of development and proliferation.

This chapter discusses how Hammer became the most important and influential makers of genre cinema, and how their rise to fame was accompanied by violent criticism. It points out that Terence Fisher's films portray the struggle between good and evil, and how they are essentially Christian. The chapter discusses several of his films. It talks about how The Mummy reveals Fisher's strengths as a director, and how Fisher, more than anyone else, is responsible for turning horror into an action genre. It discusses how the enormous success of The Curse of Frankenstein encouraged a number of imitations. The chapter also talks about the sensationalism that become a staple of the British genre film in the wake of Hammer's success, and how it is foregrounded with true crime, surgery, pornography and the circus. It moves on to discuss how Hammer was slow to catch onto the social upheavals of the 1960s and the revivifying effect this gave to the horror film. The chapter then talks about the reinvention of Frankenstein and Dracula Hammer and how this exemplifies the notion of the studio as auteur.

This chapter briefly considers some of Terrence Fisher's less successful projects during the second half of his career, which are not considered wholly accomplished works. It examines films that are outright failures but also not a bad batting average for a director like Fisher. It also mentions The Mummy from 1959, which was Fisher's stylish yet curiously empty remake of the original 1932 Universal film that was directed by Karl Freund. The chapter cites writer Lawrence Alloway, who was impressed by Christopher Lee's makeup as the title character in The Mummy, but also correctly noted that the film concentrated almost solely on the Mummy and excluded all other characters in the film. It discusses how The Mummy is interesting only when the title character is on the screen and how slackens off into production gloss as a substitute for content at other times.