Mummies are creatures inspired from the funerary practices of Egyptian mythology and are deceased pharaohs. The reanimated mummy monster concept first originated in Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "Lot No. 249" in 1892.
Origin and Entymology[]
The English word mummy is derived from medieval Latin mumia, a borrowing of the medieval Arabic word mūmiya (مومياء) and from a Persian word mūm (wax), which meant an embalmed corpse, and as well as the bituminous embalming substance, and also meant "bitumen". The Medieval English term "mummy" was defined as "medical preparation of the substance of mummies", rather than the entire corpse, with Richard Hakluyt in 1599 AD complaining that "these dead bodies are the Mummy which the Phisistians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow". These substances were defined as mummia.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a mummy as "the body of a human being or animal embalmed (according to the ancient Egyptian or some analogous method) as a preparation for burial", citing sources from 1615 AD onward. However, Chamber's Cyclopædia and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland define a mummy as follows: "A human or animal body desiccated by exposure to sun or air. Also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric snow".
Wasps of the genus Aleiodes are known as "mummy wasps" because they wrap their caterpillar prey as "mummies".
Myths and Legends[]
When a pharaoh or other royal member died, they had their organs (including rarely the heart) removed and preserved separately. Later the body would be salted and preserved. Then they were wrapped and decorated. In some stories, the mummy needed to be made properly to enjoy the afterlife.
Appearance[]
Mummies are often viewed as humans wrapped up with a type of gauze.
Power and Abilities[]
Mummies, despite their frail appearance, are said to be very strong. Sometimes, they can even place a curse on any intruder who disturbs them.
Weakness[]
In order to defeat a mummy, a person can do one of two things:
- One is to recite a spell that will put the mummy to rest.
- The other is burning them, as, unsurprisingly, they are dried out.
Mummy as a Monster[]
The famous reanimated mummy monster concept first appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "Lot No. 249" in 1892. Before that, reanimated mummies did appear in fiction, such as Théophile Gautier's romantic tale The Mummy's Foot, but not as a horror monster. Rafe McGregor writes in The Conan Doyle Weirdbook that "Lot No. 249" is "One of the most significant [stories] in the history of supernatural fiction [for] being the first to depict a reanimated mummy as a sinister, dangerous creature." Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for creating the character Sherlock Holmes as well as writing the influential novel The Lost World.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
