THE MUMMY'S CURSE

                          

MUMMYMANIA IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD

BY JASMINE DAY


The riddle of the "curse of the pharaohs" is finally solved via a radical anthropological treatment of the legend as a cultural concept rather than a physical phenomenon. The most penetrating study of the curse ever conducted shows that its structure and meaning changed over time, as public attitudes toward archaeology and the Middle East were transformed by events such as the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. Victorian women writers likened unwrapping to rape, but to exploit the growing popularity of Egyptology, Hollywood turned mummies from victims into monsters, destroying the curse's power to challenge abuses of human remains. So mummies came to symbolise everything wrong and rotten: pollution, age, death, difference and defiance of authority, becoming imaginary friends or cautionary examples for children.

"The Mummy's Curse" uncovers forgotten nineteenth century fiction and poetry, revolutionises the study of mummy horror films and reveals the prejudices embedded in children's toys. Original surveys and field observations of museum visitors demonstrate that media stereotypes, to which museums inadvertently contribute, promote vilification of mummies, which can invalidate demands for their removal from display. "The Mummy's Curse" asks: must we debase other cultures in order to practise our own?

List of contents online at:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0614/2006017790.html

Published by Routledge (London and New York), 2006
208 pp, b&w illustrations
Paperback RRP: £18.99 (ISBN 0-415-34022-5)
Hardcover RRP: £60.00 (ISBN 0-415-34021-7)

Visit the Routledge web site to order your copy now !!!

http://www.routledge.com

                             NOVA UNRAVELS 3,000-YEAR-OLD MUMMY MYSTERY  BEHIND
                             ASTONISHING DISCOVERY AND RETURN OF LOST PHARAOH
                                          FOUND IN NIAGARA  FALLS ATTRACTION

                                  NOVA Presents THE MUMMY WHO WOULD BE  KING
                                      Tuesday, January 3, 2006, at 8PM ET ON  PBS

                            Making the case for a 3,000-year-old monarch is a task set as much in the  past as the present. NOVA takes viewers on a fascinating visual journey  through modern laboratories at Emory, and back in time into ancient tombs  dotting the Nile River Valley. Reenactments bring to life the mummification  rites that marked the heyday of ancient Egypt’s illustrious “New Kingdom” when  Rameses I ruled as founder of the 19th dynasty.

               Visit the Nova web site for the Egyptological background to this fascinating investigation !
   
                                         * in-depth interview on on mummification
                             * audio slide show  through the steps of mummification
                                        * Background on the life of Rameses  I
                                                      * undiscovered tombs

                                                   http://pbs.org/nova/mummy

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