The Mummy is one of the most recognizable figures in horror and is as established in the popular imagination as virtually any other monster, yet the Mummy on screen has until now remained a largely overlooked figure in critical analysis of the cinema. In this compelling new study, Basil Glynn explores the history of the Mummy film, uncovering lost and half-forgotten movies along the way, revealing the cinematic Mummy to be an astonishingly diverse and protean figure with a myriad of on-screen incarnations. In the course of investigating the enduring appeal of this most 'Oriental' of monsters, Glynn traces the Mummy's development on screen from its roots in popular culture and silent cinema, through Universal Studios' Mummy movies of the 1930s and 40s, to Hammer Horror's re-imagining of the figure in the 1950s, and beyond.

The mummy came to life in the 1940s out of Universal Pictures' need to produce quick turnaround, low budget "B" movies. Universal produced The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, and The Mummy's Curse (originally The Mummy's Return) and thus created a popular franchise that is still supported today by a following of loyal fans. (Universal was prompted to produce a remake of its Mummy films in 1999.) This book is devoted entirely to Universal's Mummy movies of the 1940s. It reveals lost action and dialogue by analyzing scenes that were edited out days before The Mummy's Hand was released to theaters, treats readers to other dialogue that was filmed and then cut down to almost nothing before being included in the films, and compares and contrasts the original story of The Mummy's Return to the final shooting script of what was later renamed The Mummy's Curse. Each of the films has its own chapter, and chapters are also devoted to the actors who played the heroes, heroines, high priests, victims, and mummies in the films, and to the filmmakers who brought the mummies to life.

In 1922, when Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, much of what was then known about mummies came from the writing of Greek historian Herodotus and from the paintings on the walls of Egyptian tombs. Even before 1922, the mummy had been the subject of fiction, with such writers as Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tackling the subject, and early films dating back to 1901. In this work, the authors present the religious, social and scientific aspects of mummies as well as an in-depth discussion of facts about them (largely Egyptian, but including other kinds of mummies). Then, how mummies are portrayed in fiction and in the movies is discussed. Stories and films in which the mummy is a focal character are listed.

"This book recounts the detective work of the Houston Mummy Research Program as it investigates the mysterious Egyptian mummy of a man named Ankh-Hap. CT-scans reveal that the mummy has wasp nests in its skull, wooden poles within its wrappings, and a suspicious number of missing body parts. Clues inside the coffin take the investigation to a company in Rochester, N.Y. founded by Henry Augustus Ward. This businessman raided the mummy-pits of Egypt and sold whole bodies and body parts to the public. The book investigates mummy trafficking in America and the uses made of these human remains for amusement and the manufacture of medicine, paint, and other products. The trail next leads to Texas, where the mummy spent part of the twentieth century in a veterinarian's classroom before it was lost inside an abandoned campus restroom"--

What weird science lay in the mummy case of Ret-Seh? What uncanny power created this lovely, terrifying vision?excerptThe mummy case was the finest thing of its sort that Hargraves ever had seen; a magnificent thing marvelous with paint and gold. It was a slender elaborate affair showing the figure of a woman, a woman who must have been a ravishing beauty in life if the carved and painted face was even a passable likeness of the original whose body was-supposedly-within the case.Moreover, it was a strikingly lifelike face; a face of perfect oval, with a delicate cleft chin, with beautifully rounded cheeks, with broad low forehead crowned with masses of black hair, with a thin straight nose that would have been imperious had it not been for the uptilted tip; with arching brows over lustrous eyes that seemed-even in painted form-to gaze up at Hargraves with a questing, ardent expression; and with carmine lips parted in an alluring, most provocative smile."Actually looks as if she wanted to be kissed," mused Hargraves as he stood off and admired the carved and painted figure. "Must have been a pretty thing if she looked like that. Regular heart-breaker, back in days of the Pharaohs, I expect. And what a figure! Might represent Pharaoh's daughter at the time she found little Moses."

The Mummy, A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology is linguist and Orientalist E.A. Wallis Budge's detailed overview of Egyptian funeral practices and beliefs. Included is a history of Egypt, as well as the translation of common hieroglyphs, to augment readers' understanding of Egyptian culture. He describes in detail the wrapping and burying of mummies, the attendants to the tombs and the dead, drawings and hieroglyphs found on tomb walls, coffins and sarcophagi, treasures buried with the dead, and scarabs, among other things. This book is a beautiful complement to The Book of the Dead, which describes the Egyptian afterlife and the motivations for detailed and drawn-out burials. This edition is the revised and enlarged edition, originally published in 1925. SIR ERNEST ALFRED THOMPSON WALLIS BUDGE (1857-1934) was born in Bodmin, Cornwall in the UK and discovered an interest in languages at a very early age. Budge spent all his free time learning and discovering Semitic languages, including Assyrian, Syriac, and Hebrew. Eventually, through a close contact, he was able to acquire a job working with Egyptian and Iraqi artifacts at the British Museum. Budge excavated and deciphered numerous cuneiform and hieroglyphic documents, contributing vastly to the museum's collection. Eventually, he became the Keeper of his department, specializing in Egyptology. Budge wrote many books during his lifetime, most specializing in Egyptian life, religion, and language.

Released in 1932, The Mummy moved Universal horror into a land of deserts, pyramids, and long-lost tombs. This book examines the roots of The Mummy. It shows how the film shares many motifs with the work of writers such as H. Rider Haggard and discusses how The Mummy drew upon a contemporary vogue for all things ancient Egyptian.