Mummy 

Hello and welcome back to Fab Figmentals, the podcast that explores the realm of curious creatures, magical monsters, and beautiful beasts!

I’m your host, Lindsey Morse.

Each episode, we dive into the folklore and history of a different legendary creature and share a story about it. And today we’re continuing our October exploration of some of Halloween’s most famous monsters.

In this episode, we’re traveling to Egypt, land of the pyramids and the ancient stomping ground of the pharaohs, to look at a monster that’s perhaps more real than any creature we’ve explored so far on this show— the mummy.

Pretty much everyone knows the Halloween version of the mummy, so I’d like to kick off the show by talking a little bit about real life mummies. For most people, mummies— whether real or legendary— are distinctly Egyptian, but did you know that mummies have been found pretty much all over the world? 

But first— let’s get a quick refresher on what a mummy actually is: a mummy is the preserved body of a human or animal that has been exposed— intentionally or unintentionally— to chemicals, cold, low humidity, or lack of air. As long as the conditions are right or a certain process is applied, instead of decaying and wasting away, a body will dry and perserve.

Some of the most famous unintentional mummies are the “bog bodies” that have been found in the peaty wetlands of Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. These bodies, often deposited after a murder or ritual sacrifice, have been incredibly well preserved due to the cool temperatures, lack of oxygen, and low-acidity of the bog waters. The skin and internal organs are frequently still intact, and it’s even sometimes possible to determine the deceased’s final meal based on the preserved contents of the stomach. 

Certain civilizations intentionally mummified the remains of humans and animals. This was done in some parts of Asia, the Canary Islands, and Chile, and there’s even the 19th century case of Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher and founder of utilitarianism, who left instructions that his body be preserved after his death and put on display in the halls of University College London. Bentham wanted to be preserved using a technique utilized by indiginous New Zealanders, and it didn’t quite go according to plan. There were some issues properly treating his head, and as a result, it was removed from the body, put into storage, and replaced with a wax replica. I’ve been to University College London, and I can vouch that the body— wax head and all— is still sitting on display in a glass and wood display case— an unsettling example of a modern day mummy.

But, it’s true, the most famous mummies are Egyptian mummies. As early as 2800 bc, deliberate mummification became an integral part of Egyptian death rituals, and was a key aspect of religion. The Egyptians believed that preserving the body was necessary if one wished to ensure immortality, and the mummified body was buried with luxury goods and wealth that could be utilized by the deceased in the afterlife. 

Of course, these real world mummies are quite a departure from the idea of the “monster mummy”— the undead, bandaged, revenge-seeking creature that spooks in the shadows. This mummy is something else entirely, and a relatively modern creation. 

The concept first began popping up in the 19th century, when Egypt was being colonized by Victorian Britain. People were dazzled by the findings of archaeologists, and a romanticized notion of Egypt started influencing the writers of the time.

The first mummy stories were often love stories between a male protagonist and a female mummy, clearly representing the sexualized Orientalism of the time. It’s not until later that the idea of the “monster mummy” truly takes hold, but in 1932, when Boris Karloff played the role of the mummy on the big screen, it became iconic. 

Our story today is inspired by both real life mummies and the “monster mummies” of modern legend, and it takes place in Victorian Britain at the height of the Egyptology craze. The setting: a museum that’s getting ready for a huge opening. The main character: a curator who’s just received a haul of goods from a recently excavated Egyptian tomb. He’s sure the exhibition he’s organized is bound to be the highlight of his career. But will it? 

We’ve written today's tale in house, and we’re calling it: “The Curator & the Curse of Cairo.”

Please note that the stories we share on this program are often more Brothers Grimm than Mother Goose, and this episode takes a bit of a realistic dark turn in the second act. It may not be appropriate for little ears. 

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The exhibition was finally ready. This would be the most magnificent array of Ancient Egyptian art and artifacts to ever be displayed in London, or any other city.

In addition to the renowned collection garnered by his museum over many years, the curator had secured the latest sensational discovery by an archeological expedition to the famed Valley of the Kings. They had brought back a fabulous horde of riches, and now the full opulence of the pharaohs would be on display for the people of London to admire. It was a coup for the museum and, the curator noted with a sense of patriotic pride, a statement of the enlightened glory of the British Empire.

Pride of place in the great hall of the museum was a complete recreation of the tomb of a Pharaoh. The stone walls, which had been cut clean away from the subterranean grave, were vividly painted with hieroglyphs that depicted the monarch’s reign on Earth and foretold his journey into the afterlife. 

The treasures that would accompany the ruler into that afterlife - weaponry, a chariot, jars of incense and ointments, exquisite jewelry of gold and lapis-lazuli, and amphorae of wine and grain - were all here, perfectly preserved.

The four canoptic jars were on display: The liver, intestines, lungs, and stomach of the pharaoh, each placed inside its own special container shaped in the form of a god to protect the vital organs. 

According to Egyptian custom, the heart had been left inside the body, in order that it should be weighed by the gods to measure the goodness or evil accumulated during the deceased’s time in the mortal realm. If the heart was pure, the soul would pass to a heavenly realm; if the heart was heavy with sin, condemnation in eternal limbo awaited.

The body lay wrapped in its bandages within a massive open granite-hewn sarcophagus. The lid - a mighty one-ton slab - had been placed to one side, and upon its top were carved many mysterious and cryptic symbols, only a few of which had been fathomed by even the most expert Egyptologists. But one of the messages, inscribed in ancient cuneiform, had been translated, and the English version was printed upon a card that accompanied the display:

As for all men who shall enter my tomb 

There will be judgment and his end shall be grim. 

I shall seize his neck like a bird,

I shall cast the fear of myself into him.

The curator of the museum stood triumphantly over the desiccated body of the long-dead pharaoh. He admired the riches assembled in the great hall. This was the crowning moment of his career. A perfect recreation in cold and smog-filled London of a royal tomb, that sacred chamber in which the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian faith had been hidden for millennia. 

Gazing back upon the bandaged body, he was at once repelled and fascinated. Here lay a man who had walked upon this mortal coil a thousand years before the birth Christ. 

This man who had sailed along the River Nile in a gilded barge in the days when limestone sheathing of the Great Pyramids still gleamed and the gaudy decorations of the mighty temples sparkled in the African sun. Yet here he was, this master of all he surveyed, now shriveled and bound in tattered cloth. He who had once been worshiped as a living god was reduced to a fragile, hollow thing. 

In life, no man had dared to meet his eye. Yet now the sockets where the eyes had been stared up at him, two sunken, darkened patches upon the faded cloth. 

“Pharaoh,” the curator whispered. “I dare to look upon you. Your glory has passed. My time has come.”

An aroma, faint as the softest whisper, rose from the mummy - the precious balms used to anoint and preserve the body, the secret formulae of Egypt’s finest undertakers, required to preserve the body of their king for all eternity. A heady message wafting across time and space, connecting the ancient and the modern, the living and the dead.

The curator leaned down and whispered to the mummy in its granite hollow. “Here you are, oh, Pharaoh. You are in heaven now - this is your afterlife, great king. In my possession.” 

He stood up straight and lifted his eyes to the great brass chandeliers that would soon be lit to illuminate in gaslight the artifacts that had only known the burning of oil lamps. His heart swelled with pride at his masterpiece, and his mind drifted to think of the adulatory newspaper headlines that would surely follow that evening’s grand opening. He even allowed himself to imagine the Queen admiring the exhibition and then conferring upon him a knighthood for his services to the realm.

Breaking his reverie, an usher came in to announce that a visitor had arrived and wished to see him. Irritated, the curator left the scene of his triumph, only to return within a matter of minutes, and with him a professor of history from Oxford who had been granted the honor of an early viewing.

“And here we are, professor,” quoth the curator. “A reassembly, in perfect detail, of the recently excavated tomb.”

The Oxford don grimaced. “Not quite perfect, sir. Not quite perfect, it seems.” He pointed into the dark, empty sarcophagus. “Are you not missing the star of the show?”

“Good god!” The curator cried. “The body was right there! I gazed upon him but a moment ago. Theft! Robbery! Who has taken the mummy?” 

Hearing these exclamations, the usher hurried over. “Sirs, what is the matter?”

“Look! Look, you fool.” The flustered curator, his face deathly white, pointed into the vacant coffin. “Someone has stolen the body. Search everywhere, call Scotland Yard! We must find the mummy immediately - the grand opening takes within the hour!”

The usher was perplexed. “Sir, I have been in the corridor outside all this time. No-one save yourselves has been in or out. On that I would vouch my reputation.”

“Your reputation be damned, man! For the body, as can you can plainly see, has been taken right from under your nose!”

Flustered, the usher looked around. A wall of high windows flanked one side of the exhibition hall, the last of the day’s weak wintry sun casting a cold sheen upon the contents of the tomb. In one far corner, a window stood ajar. “Look there, the thief must have shimmied up, grabbed the thing, and then fled back the way he came.”

The three men dashed to the open widow and looked down. The garden of the museum lay 40 feet below. “Impossible,” the curator said. “To scale this wall, seize such a delicate thing as the mummy, and carry it down? In a matter of minutes, moreover? No man could manage such a feat!”

“I tend to agree," said the professor. “And yet, if the usher here is telling the truth, then there can be no other explanation.”

“The truth, sir?” The usher was red in the face with outrage. “The truth! Why, I swear on all that is holy that no man entered or exited this room by that doorway, save yourselves. Fetch me a Bible and I shall swear an oath upon it!”

The three men looked back down. And each noticed, one by one, upon a spike atop the high railing that separated the garden from the gloomy street beyond, a length of bandage waving in the cold wind, a macabre pennant fluttering in the gathering darkness.

In that moment, a clot seemed to form and spread within the curator’s throat. He coughed, hard and dry. Raising his handkerchief to his mouth, he coughed again. And to his horror, upon the pure white linen dark speckles of fresh blood were stained.

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For this story, we pulled a lot of details straight from history. Canoptic jars, for example, like the ones featured in the story, were often made of pottery or limestone, sometimes beautifully decorated, and used to store and preserve organs during the mummification process. Tombs were actually packed with gold and jewels for use by the deceased in the afterlife. And curses were often inscribed on the walls of temples. 

In fact, we didn’t invent the curse featured in today’s story. It was discovered in the tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi, an Egyptian ruler from the 10th-9th century BCE. 

Incredible, right? 

But perhaps the most well-known curse is the curse of Tutankhamen. 

In 1922, a British archaeologist named Howard Carter found and opened the tomb of King Tutankhamen in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings. It was a marvel. Unlike many of the tombs discovered in the region, due to it’s location it had been spared desecration and robbery, and it was densely packed with wonders. 

Carter carefully and methodically removed and catalogued the valuable antiquities held inside, but some also believed he’d unearthed something sinister. 

It is said that the first death occurred only shortly after the tomb was opened, and that the victim was Carter’s pet canary. The story goes that, upon cracking the seal on the tomb, the archaeologist sent a messenger on an errand to his home. As soon as he arrived, the man heard a terrible cry, and he followed the sound to find the bird gone. Sitting in the cage was none other than a cobra— the symbol of the Egyptian pharaohs and the very creature depicted on the crown of King Tut’s funerary mask.

Other deaths followed. Lord Canarvan, the financial backer of the expedition, was bitten by a mosquito on his cheek. Later, he nicked the bite while shaving— nothing unusual there— except that the wound became infected and resulted in blood poisoning… and his death. 

All together, over 10 deaths have been attributed to the curse of King Tut’s tomb. And it’s an incredible story: a powerful mummy curse that punishes and kills tomb raiders. But, amazingly, it’s not actually true. No curse was ever found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Rumors  about a curse only began to circulate two weeks before the death of Lord Canarvon, when an English novelist named Marie Correlli wrote a very creative letter to New York World magazine quoting an obscure book that stated “dire consequences” would come to any who trespassed upon any sealed Egyptian tombs. This letter incited a media frenzy about CURSES!, and before long everyone seemed convinced the curse of King Tut was real. 

But— just like the idea of the “monster mummy” that’s invaded popular culture and our modern horror canon— it was really just an invention of the West.

If I’m honest, I find the idea of this Halloween mummy a little cartoonish. And I have to admit— I have a hard time finding it very scary. 

The darkest part of the mummy story, I think, won’t be found in horror stories or legends. To find something genuinely disturbing, we need look no further than history itself.

In medieval Europe, a substance known as “mummia” gained traction as a medicinal cure-all. “Mummia” wasn’t a new discovery; the substance, a type of resinous mineral, was widely used in traditional Islamic medicine. But due to the name, a mix-up occurred, and certain apothecaries began selling instead a resin collected from the bodies of embalmed mummies. Before long, “mummia” was mummy, and lucrative trade between Egypt and Europe kept supplies of this famed “medicine” healthy. 

But then, in the 16th century, Egypt banned the export of mummia, and European sellers were forced to source this best selling product from somewhere else. The most unscrupulous of these merchants started faking mummia— often creating it by embalming and desiccating the bodies of fresh corpses.

I don’t suppose I need to tell you that consuming mummy has zero actual health benefits. 

But, would you believe that mummies weren’t only used in medicine, but also art? 

A pigment known as “mummy brown” gained popularity in the 16th and 17th centuries, and was made from a combination of pitch, myrrh, and the ground up bodies of Egyptian mummies. Demand for this color was great— it was a favorite of the pre-Raphaelites— and often there weren’t enough mummies available to produce the quantities required. Again, suppliers relied on unethical practices to meet demand. Bodies of slaves, criminals, and the incarcerated were sometimes used to fake the famous color. As word spread about the origins of the pigment in the late 19th century, popularity fell. And by 1915, demand for “mummy brown” had shriveled so much that one seller claimed he could satisfy the demands of his customers for twenty years from one Egyptian mummy. A lack of available mummies and interest eventually led producers to come up with a new formula for the pigment. 

Thank goodness, right? 

So, sure, it’s fun to get scared thinking about mummy curses and a bandaged monster rising from the dead. But eating ground up mummies for their medicinal benefits? Mummifying prisoners and criminals to keep up with a demand for paint? I dare say these are the stories that will keep me up at night this Halloween. 

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Thank you so much for tuning in to Fab Figmentals!

Research, writing, and sound editing are done by me, Lindsey Morse. Niall Cooper assists with writing and editing. Our theme music was created by the wonderfully talented Graeme Ronald. 

New episodes drop every Wednesday. Make sure to subscribe to the show to get new episodes as soon as they’re available.

If you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon. You’ll find a link to our Patreon page on our website, FabFigmentals.com. We have several different support levels, but even a $1 pledge helps us out. This week, I’m posting a bonus mummy story for supporters: Louisa May Alcott’s short story “Lost in a Pyramid or The Mummy’s Curse.” 

Thanks again for listening, and I hope you’ll join me next week, when we’ll conclude our look at some of the most famous Halloween monsters. And we’ve saved the big guy for last: Count Dracula. 

We’ll see you next time.