Historical Review of the Mummy

Jacob Pierce History 302-001 Professor Thomason 10/30/09 The Mummy The movie flashes forward to 1925 C.E., where a brother and sister team of Egyptologists enlist the help of a former Legionnaire to help them find Hamunaptra. During the course of discovering the city, they stumble upon the mummy of Imhotep and the Book of the Dead. After one of the main characters reads the first passage of the book, Imhotep returns to life. After killing the holders of his canopic jars and harvesting their organs to replace his own, Imhotep attempts to kidnap the female Egyptologist in order to sacrifice her to bring back Anck-Su-Namun. The ensuing battle over the girl and the future of Egypt takes place at Hamunaptra, where a myriad of mummy shenanigans take place. In the end, the heroes and heroine find the Book of Amun-Re and use it to defeat Imhotep. The characters from ancient Egypt in the Mummyhave some basis in history, although they are not from contemporary eras. Sety I was indeed the second pharaoh of the 19thdynasty as the movie claims, and he did most likely rule from Thebes as most of the New Kingdom pharaohs did. Yet the year of his murder is listed as 1290 B.C.E., while many sources have his reign lasting until 1279 B.C.E. when he died peacefully of natural causes. Another error occurs in the opening scene of the movie that shows Imhotep looking from the Thebanpalace towards the pyramids is inaccurate. The kings of the Thebes area in Upper Egypt built their tombsin the Valley of the Kings, not in pyramids. In addition, the only area where three pyramids align in such a manner depicted is in Giza, whichis much further to the north. In addition to the error in geography, Imhotep was not a High Priest but instead an architect of high renown. Imhotep designed Zozer’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara, yet he was not connected to any religious order as far as historicalrecords show. In addition, Imhotep was the architect of Zoser’s pyramid and therefore lived