340: The Mummy with Dr. Aidan Dodson

Dan LeFebvre  04:16

Before we dig into some of the details of the movie if you were to take a step back and give 1999 Is the mummy an overall letter grade for its historical accuracy? What would it get?

Aidan Dodson  04:27

Oh, I think it would be called probably a D- or an E. Okay, the points where it actually has something to do with the real Ancient Egypt are few and far between.

Dan LeFebvre  04:43

Ancient Egypt did exist and that’s it. Pretty much. Yeah.

Aidan Dodson  04:46

But interestingly that even the country that it’s set in does not look like Egypt. Oh, really? i Okay. They take it further with the latest ones, the franchise, but basically most of what we see there It is not recognizably Egypt of any period. I suppose. There are a few things which sort of people might think might be Egypt, but no, it’s some. It’s a straight as I went when it first came out, I went and we asked her I said, basically, it’s in a land which they’re calling Egypt, but it’s fundamentally more like Middle Earth or some other fictional fictional venue. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  05:27

okay. It’s it’s got the sands. And so I guess for the American movie viewing audience, it’s okay, that’s, that’s Egypt.

Aidan Dodson  05:34

Yeah, exactly. Yes, I suppose so. Yeah. But of course, we’ve heard if you know, Egypt, there’s a lot of which isn’t seven. So it’s a caricature of what somebody who’s never been to Egypt thinks it might be like, I think that’s the best way of describing it. Very

Dan LeFebvre  05:48

good. Very good. What the movie starts by kind of setting up some of the people involved in this story. We hear about Pharaoh Seti the first his wife, an oxygen a moon, that high priest emo tap, and afford to believe the movies version of history. Emo tap an affair with an oxygen moon. And when they were discovered, the two of them killed SETI Are those real people did the affair that we see in the movie really happen? The

Aidan Dodson  06:12

only person who’s really setting the first he was a genuine king of Egypt. Yeah, his mommy is in the Cairo Museum. He’s the father of Rameses. The second so he’s he’s a wet he’s an important figure in Egyptian history. The thing is, he never had a wife called ankarana. Moon, he never had an official called him Hotep. And as far as we can tell, he died in his bed of natural causes. We’d actually do know, he died relatively young. But there but there’s sort of no signs of any foul play or anything on the mummy.

Dan LeFebvre  06:46

Okay, okay. So they did change things quite a bit what the concept, obviously being his wife, you wouldn’t want to have have an affair there. But they really seem to make it a big deal that you know, Emma type is the high priest and having an affair with the pharaohs wife is, you know, they have her outfit basically painted on that you’re not allowed to touch or they have that kind of thing on there. Yeah,

Aidan Dodson  07:09

this has got me three things. The first is the choice of the name for the queen. In fact, it’s a garbled version of the wife of Tom comunes. Actually his wife, and is is lifted directly from your original 1932 movie, where the heroine is called that. And likewise, him Hotep is lifted directly from the 1932 bar Boris Karloff film as well. So there’s a lot of this film, because at the time it was, originally it was presented as going to be a remake of the 1932 classic or possibly the Hammer Horror version, the 1950s. But it wasn’t that all they did was picked a few things. For example, the names of the hero and heroine are anti hero and heroine.

Dan LeFebvre  07:56

Okay, yeah, so they’re pulling from multiple sources sounds like men and turning it into the Middle Earth slash Ancient Egypt, fictional area to create this kind

Aidan Dodson  08:05

of thing that the original idea was possibly to do a remake. And then they decided though, let’s change this. But let’s change this bit until the till the relationship with the original version is, isn’t there at all.

Dan LeFebvre  08:20

Make sense? Make sense? I want to ask about something in the movie that we see kind of the talking about emo Tapi transfers into the mummy through what the movie calls the hum die. You know, the movie explains this as being the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses reserved only for the most evil of blasphemers. And the key to this curse is basically keeping the mummy sealed in his sarcophagus. Because if he’s released, then he becomes this super power walking disease. Bring it back the 10 plagues of Egypt, strength of ages, the power of the Sands and the glory of instant disability. Did the ancient Egyptians have any sort of curse like the home die that we see in the movie? Not

Aidan Dodson  09:01

in the slightest, no, the only curses we have are basically against embezzling funerary endowments. There’s not even anything about if you if you rob my tomb, you’re going to be it’s it’s very much almost a transactional kind of thing. And certainly the idea of of that kind of thing as being the worst possible punishment that we know they had capital punishment. And we know that for some things that you tomb robbing, you could be impaled. Otherwise, punishments tended to be I see with I’d say probably worse, straightforward executions, but often having your nose and ears cut off and sent to work in the mines, that sort of thing is there is the really, it’s really nasty kind of stuff. And when you’ve got somebody who’s guilty of a state crime, it seems if you’re high enough place you’re allowed to commit suicide. because we do have we do have the records of the trials of people who are responsible for assassinating a later Pharaoh. And basically, the the, it seems fairly clear that these are some of the more senior ones were allowed to sort of go off and kill themselves. But otherwise, which is that their fate overtook them is the as the other one is the word used. So, but there is no evidence for any kind of sort of particularly sort of nasty or special kinds of punishments like that. Okay, okay. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  10:32

that was that was something that the first time I watched this movie back, I think I saw it in the theaters when it first came out. But how was it immediately I was like, wait a minute, why wouldn’t some Pharaoh be like, I’m going to purposely have this curse, and yet, it’s going to suck to be killed that way. But then I’m going to become into this invincible super power, right, like to get that power in the other side.

Aidan Dodson  10:55

And also, the other point is that surely by saving him up like that, is preserving his body. And that was the way that you that was what people wanted, it seems that if you were particularly bad, you were burned, which is the way of destroying your afterlife. So actually, the whole idea of preserving some of your special way as a curse is completely the wrong way round the points but if somebody was particularly bad for things, you destroy them, every trace of them on Earth, because part again, part of the idea is that your while your body survives, your soul survives everything else. And obviously more important and interesting that if your name survives, the whole point about sort of somebody who’s done something really really dreadful, is to not only destroy their body, but destroy every any mention that ever existed. So doing this to him home tip is completely opposite to what you would expect. There are some you’ve picked up things like particularly horrendous.

Dan LeFebvre  11:56

Okay, that makes perfect sense. Because I’ve I know, I’ve, I can’t think of any names off the top of my head, I’m sure you have a lot more. But I know I’ve seen things about you know, the ancient Egyptians carving off names and things like that to try to erase them from history. Exactly.

Aidan Dodson  12:12

And that’s that’s the whole point. And there’s the bottom line is providing these John names survives on Earth, you’ll never be dead. So they say, you know, write a book and live forever. But if he would say the opposite way round is a take, take the name away, destroy the body, and then you will be as though you’re never You never were.

Dan LeFebvre  12:33

Okay, I want to there’s something. This is just kind of talking about the curse there. In the movie. We see the curse affects the people who open the motifs canopic jars most because he needs those to regenerate. There’s a group of American treasure hunters who fall prey to the mummy so he can start that regeneration process. But the impression that I got from the movie was they were pulling from the curse of the pharaohs, which is something that I’ve heard about. But is there anything from history to suggest the curse of the pharaohs is actually a real thing like moving implies.

Aidan Dodson  13:03

The slightest now it was made up by a journalist in 1922. Basically, when they were when they were excavating the toilets on Cameroon. They were basically journalists hanging around all the time. And one of the journalist was actually an ex Egyptologist, who I think was rather embittered by the fact that because he was he’d once been an Egyptologist he might be allowed in and get some special scoop. But basically, they turned I said, No, you’re now one of one of them. You can and I get the feeling, although it’s we haven’t got it in words of one syllable. But he’s the span various stories with his fellow journalists, because he got the pedigree of being a form rich Egyptologist. And he made basically, as far as we make it, he made it up. The whole the whole thing. And what’s really ironic is the guy who we think is responsible making it up when he died of cancer 10 years later, they alleged he died at the pharaohs curse, when actually he was the person who made it up in the first place. So they say the only sort of curses which exist, are what we might call ones against embezzlement, because when you built your two, there was a need to have offerings, regularly placed in it. And what you’d often do is then endow some agricultural land to provide food to be to go to your town. And the concern was that this might be embezzled and the end the resources diverted somewhere else. So that’s really where when we see curses, they’re really against that kind of thing, rather than the sort of classic if you if you rob my to my old do something nasty to you. I think that’s sort of almost implicit that that’s that’s the case. That and we know that sometimes that mummies are often burned by robbers, and we think that may be to lie the robbers to try and stop the dead person taking revenge. But that’s not Because that’s a curse that just simply, if you do something to the dead, that’ll come get you.

Dan LeFebvre  15:06

You may have already kind of alluded to this, but in the movie storyline, it takes place mostly in a city called Hymenoptera. And the movie explains Hymenoptera as being known as the city of the dead because it was the ancient burial site for the sons of pharaohs. Is Hymenoptera an actual place? Nope.

Aidan Dodson  15:23

And in fact, what Hymenoptera is actually a mispronunciation of probably, and Monterrey, the chief god, the Hmong culture certainly doesn’t exist. And it doesn’t look like any set in Egyptian cemetery I’ve ever come across. Basically, within the set up in the was you’d have the ordinary town, and then there’d be normally to the west of it, because that’s where the dead live, there will be a cemetery, which would be depending on the period would just look like this in the area of desert with a few or it may be a cliff with some tombs cut into it or whatever. But none of that what the what they show us Hammond portrait looks a bit like a cross between the Temple of cognac and somebody’s sort of sad fantasy, it’s, that’s again, that sort of thing. But say, I think it’s I think I think they’ve saved the clearly that name, the only way they can get it for I think it’s just an Asus is distorting and raw. And there’s other thing which which always got me moment I saw it, my wife always hates it, if I watch anything like this, because I’m always snapping at it. There’s the bit where they’re hurrying off from Cairo to heaven, portra. And they go by steam. What’s wrong with the overnight express train? By the time this is set, which is presumably 1920s ish, there a there’s an overnight there’s an express train, which will get you from Cairo to lux, which I assume is what they call the app, Hammond portra in like 10 hours, so why go? Why get why go get a paddle steam, which takes days? Again, this question about some bearing very little resemblance to Egypt, you know, and there’s also that sort of slave market thing early on. There might have got that in about 1500. But you had anything like that in Egypt, you know, for sort of centuries. So again, it’s it’s not Egypt at all. It’s a fantasy land, which they’re calling Egypt, and they’ve sort of brought in a few bits and bits and pieces, which people didn’t get, ooh, that’s Egypt, but it’s as natural as natural place where all this stuff is happening. It’s bears no resemblance whatsoever.

Dan LeFebvre  17:41

Well, I have to ask kind of the flip side of the city of the dead is the city of the living, which in the movie is where emotet lives, Thebes is thieves of real

Aidan Dodson  17:49

place. Thieves certainly is a real place. It’s the group name for what we now call look. So and that was the religious capital of Egypt from about 1500 BCE, through to about 1100 BC. So during that during the very high pot, and certainly during the time that SETI was, you know we have we have temples of Seti the first there, we’ve got best reason was because tumors and everything else. So the idea of there being that is no is fine. And that is the what we’ve got to know on the east bank at modern Luxor, and the city of the dead that necropolis is on the west bank. So that’s sorted that East West division is certainly there. And so as I said earlier on, I think most in most parts of Egypt, there was there would be the area of the living, and then there’ll be the cemetery. So ideally, off to the west, if the topography allows that sometimes it’s off to the east, and they do some more weird and wonderful things to try and sort out the orientation, but basically, that there is that basic division there.

Dan LeFebvre  18:51

Okay, and that, I mean, that doesn’t seem like it’s anything unique to Ancient Egyptians. I mean, even today, you know, we have cemeteries and you see cities in, I live in America, you see cities in America, where the cemetery is kind of off, off to the side, you know, as the city grew, but how would Yeah, exactly,

Aidan Dodson  19:09

I think, I think so. I’ve traveled quite a lot in the States. I do it out just outside San Francisco, you’ve got this whole city of the dead of Colmar and everything else going off off to the south. So yeah, that idea is less I think the issue is, it’s normally should be to the west, whereas we don’t quite do that. But it’s helped, of course, by the fact that you’ve got a North South River so it’s a West Bank and East Bank and that sort of, and generally speaking, providing the topography allows it you will be buried on the West it just some cut some case places where the foot where the cultivated floodplain goes off so far, if you wanted to go and sort of visit granddad’s grave, you’d have a day’s journey. So they mucking around a little bit but that’s the but yeah, so I think they’ve they’ve taken clearly what is looks or Thebes as their model and sort of then dropped into it this Hammond portra concept.

Dan LeFebvre  20:03

There’s another element to Hymenoptera being the place of the resting place of the wealth of Egypt. There’s a scene in the movie that is this huge big room filled with all sorts of gold and statues and just huge piles of gold just there. It looks exactly like what you would expect a treasure room to look like themed with ancient Egypt with all these statues. Do we know if the Egyptians had any huge treasure rooms? Like we see in the movie? Not

Aidan Dodson  20:30

like that. I think this if they did they that any treasure which they had, they certainly had quadrate right? They certainly had it would have just been in small store rooms with under lock and key you wouldn’t put it in pilot into all that kind of thing. I think what you’ve got then is this idea of the legendary wealth of Egypt. The fact the fact that you could take it with you and your tomb so royal tombs were fairly well packed with, with with gold and stuff, look at the stuff that they found it took time for moons to come. That’s a good, good example of that. But not was certainly nothing, nothing like that kind of thing. And that’s that’s just simply just sort of an excuse further set builders to have to have fun, I suppose. Because you say I think it’s almost a trope from all kinds of these kinds of these sorts of whether it’s Indiana Jones or whatever, there’s always this, this torch lit Great Hall with whatever the stuff is in the middle of it. And we have no no examples of anything, anything like that at all.

Dan LeFebvre  21:33

Okay, you mentioned the torchlight. Now, there was something I wanted to ask about because in the movie, we see Rachel vices character Evelyn, she calls when she calls an ancient Egyptian trick where they reposition mirrors above the ground to then cast light underground. And that made me wonder how did the ancient Egyptians see underground? Did they just use fire that then would burn up their oxygen? or was there some sort of ancient trick like we see in the movie? Well,

Aidan Dodson  21:57

it’s actually the thread which she’s using is actually the trick they use nowadays to light up to okay by using mirrors if you there’s a couple of if you go if you if you visit some of the tombs in Egypt today, most of them have now got LED lighting and everything but there’s a few where they where they still haven’t got so therefore they’ll use some mirrors just to bounce some sounds something they’re basically what they used was little floating wick oil lamps, but with very very pure olive oil. And and apparently if you put salt in it, it doesn’t smoke. So that’s that’s clearly West what they used for that for it. The idea of flaming torches without again, they they look, they look fun in on Hollywood, we’ve never actually used such a thing because it will just mess up the paintwork. Oh,

Dan LeFebvre  22:46

yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, I was thinking that you know in more enclosed spaces like you would lose oxygen even faster if you had this huge torch and then the light would go out and then you would go out

Aidan Dodson  22:56

like what you want because people who are actually down there are going to be the artists they weren’t actually going to see properly so definitely want the thick a nice pure light which you can get from sort of olive oil with a little oil lamps you know this sort of flickering torches unless you want to if you’re trying to get you’re trying to get your colors right and and so on. So they don’t again that again, the flaming torches are as I think a standard. If you go back into Hollywood history, as always what you do if you’re going underground, some of you have flaming torches. You don’t go with nice, loyal or anything like that. There

Dan LeFebvre  23:33

are a group of people in the movie that we see called the Magi and they are according to the movie Pharaoh’s bodyguards. They were there when said he was killed. They’re the ones to perform the curse on emotive as punishment for killing somebody. And then for 1000s of years, they’re tasked with making sure that the mummy doesn’t escape. How well do you think the movie does showing Pharaohs bodyguards? The Magi? Well, first

Aidan Dodson  23:56

of all, they don’t exist to start with the magic magic. The magic and map made made magic magic. Magi sorry, are basically the Egyptian police force to name for policemen, effectively. So nothing nothing special. They just they’re sort of parrot they’re dissuaded from paramilitary police. The idea of then any kind of continuity like that it’s just it just can’t this can’t possibly this doesn’t work in the sense of looking at the history of Egypt from that point that point onwards. There with with with the multiple sets of disjuncture with the Persians with the Assyrians evading the Persians evading the Greeks invading the Germans invading the Arabs invading, etc, etc. The chance of any kind of survival of this covers kind of sort of little band of brothers kind of thing. It’s throughout generations. It’s just, it’s just absolutely silly. But of course they of course, don’t. They’ve taken that actually from the 90s 32 Mummy film, when you’ve said we’ve got wherever the mummy is that purse is the is actually the person who was sort of as frisky as it was lived as lived on through as lived on through time. So, yeah, it’s again, one of those things where it’s, it’s just it’s a fun bit of the story, but it just doesn’t bear any any resemblance. But then he’s getting some, there’s something that you find in quite a few film, this idea of this sort of this order of monks or whatever it is who’ve sort of carried out who’ve gone through history. And they’re the ones so it’s still it’s passed on from father to son kind of thing.

Dan LeFebvre  25:38

Yeah, that was definitely the feeling that I got from them was that yes, this was passed on through generations. And they were doing this and apparently didn’t do a very good job because they didn’t protect the Pharaoh and they also didn’t protect the mummy and they failed on multiple points.

Aidan Dodson  25:57

I do wonder whether some weathers whether the idea is in part, let’s say it’s not original for this particular mummy fail, is of course, you have got hereditary families in Palestine, who are the guardians of the sacred places. So the idea of a family who they want to control the keys to the churches, the Holy Sepulchre and stuff like that. So I think that’s sort of where the concept might have come. But that’s sort of only over the last and that’s less lasted 500 years or so. So it’s not sort of not to be sniffed at but that is in the context of a sort of a culture which continues to recognize this art the idea of the of these kinds of Guardians, but if you try and take it over 3000 years, it becomes just silly.

Dan LeFebvre  26:45

We talked about the the city of the dead but there’s another concept in the movie called The Book of the Dead and that’s why it’s the mummy mo tap is trying to get bring back his his the love of his life, I was gonna say his wife, but there was actually the pharaohs way. And actually, I’m going to try to bring back the love of his life. And so reading from the book is what wakes me up to begin with later on. It’s actually the the book of almond raw that is going to be the one to kill the mummy are the Book of the Dead and The Book of almond raw, are they based on real things?

Aidan Dodson  27:16

The name Book of the Dead is based on something real, although actually the document was called by data Egyptians to prove Coming Forth by Day it was called the Book of the Dead by the local villagers in the 19th century when they started finding these scrolls. And they were found on the dead so therefore they’ve been called the Book of the Dead because of that the ancient Egyptian didn’t call them book they’re dead Of course, the book of Coming Forth my day, I want the book of Coming Forth by Day or aka The Book of the Dead was was a guide book to being dead effectively. It was a set of spells which helped you transform from being a dead person to being an eternal being.

Dan LeFebvre  27:57

So passing through death into into the afterlife, basically it sounds like yeah,

Aidan Dodson  28:02

and there’s not a thing there was things you had you had to get, you know, certain passwords to get through gateways, and all those sorts of things. And therefore if you can afford it anyway, you had a scroll anyway to your mummy which have had the Book of the Dead on it alternatives haven’t painted on the walls of your tomb. Or if you couldn’t afford the whole thing you could have who could have extracts from it so basically that’s there is there is this thing there is there is this thing, but it’s all about being dead it’s coming back and it is coming back to life but coming back to life in the next world is ensuring that you are able to then say pass through into the next world and continue on for eternity on the on the other side of your fam and Rod doesn’t exist at all there’s I think there’s also she mentioned at one point of a book of the living as well which again doesn’t exist I think you said as the the producers thinking there’s a thing called the Book of the Dead with actually it’s the book of Coming Forth by Day What are we must have a book of the book a book with a living to go with it and I think Rick and I seem to recall from the first I thought it actually goes I saw the film but she’s actually looking at what seems to be a cast apart the Rosetta Stone when she’s reading this as well so that the props are a little bit bizarre in places

Dan LeFebvre  29:23

yeah I think the I remember right the Book of the Dead is kind of it’s like a darker black and then the book of the living are Is this gold treasure and which is why a lot of the treasure hunters are looking for it is because it’s this Golden Book right and

Aidan Dodson  29:39

no it’s easy I guarantee you it’s one of those things where they’ve picked up this term Book of the Dead and then so and then run with it produced the rest of the rest the rest of the thing but

Dan LeFebvre  29:48

according to the movies version of events the magnification process for emo type in his priests happened while they’re still alive. The movie guy makes a point to mention this although Oh, the movie does mention that that’s kind of a special case for the curse to mummify them alive. But we do know that mummies are a real thing. But obviously, they’re not tied to the curses, like we see in the movie. So for those of us who aren’t familiar with the reason behind the mummies, can you share some more historical context that we don’t see in the movie at all around why Ancient Egyptians made mummies basically

Aidan Dodson  30:20

what the the way the Egyptians looked at things when you died, effectively, you split into a number of different elements, most of which were spiritual elements, but also the body was still part of you. And, and although the they don’t provide the full detail, the important implication is to enjoy a fully rounded next life, all your various bits still needed to be in existence. So therefore, the body needed to be preserved. So it could continue on playing its role. But exactly what that role is, it’s never made clear. I’m not sure even actually, the Egyptians fully understood what what it meant. It probably meant something, you know, in 5000 BC, but by the time you get to later periods, it just what you do. So basically, the idea is to take to preserve the body, at minimum, you wrap it in that in in some bandages, to hold it all together. And then if you can afford it, various chemical processes are carried out, which then desiccate the body. So effectively, unless it gets wet, or catches fire. It’s absolutely it’ll, it’ll survive forever. And that’s the idea the body should survive themselves. And it’s one of the reasons why the penalties for tomb robbery were death. Because if you were destroying somebody’s body, mummified body, you were then messing up their afterlife. And so therefore, it was effectively you know, it was effectively posthumous murder, if you were going to damage a mummy and say, we do know that in some cases, they set fire to the mummy, probably to try and stop the spirit taking any kind of revenge. So the mummy is a really quite important node if you like in the whole thing. But again, if Imhotep had done something particularly horrendous, the last thing you want to do is mummify him, because that’s the way we guarantee him a continuing existence. So therefore, you know, what you would do is execute him and then burn it. That’s what you would do in a real Ancient Egypt to somebody who was that horrendous, done something that horrendous?

Dan LeFebvre  32:39

It makes me wonder, because I think of some of some some beliefs of of afterlife now. And we think that the concept of ghosts and things like that where basically, those spirits can can go through objects, but then you’re talking about burning the mummies to keep them from coming back is, is there a belief that that mummies could come back and haunt or curse or whatever the term might be? The people in this world

Aidan Dodson  33:11

don’t the physical body itself, they certainly believe that spirits could come back and do stuff. And in fact, there’s one version of the of the of the Spirit called the bar, which actually was supposed to be able to come back and sort of sit outside the tomb and enjoy the sunset and things like that. And there were concerns that some that the malevolent spirits ghost could do harm. In this world. There’s one high priests wife, who, there is very interesting texts written, which went in her to suggesting that she hadn’t died, shall we say, on good terms with her husband? And there’s sort of a, we’d love to know what was going on there. But there’s click. And there are also some things where, while you do get a text called Letters to the dead, you could actually write a letter to you’re basically saying, Why are you why are you coming back? And then sort of disturbing, wait, why are you causing this problem in the household? And it’s sort of thought to be the dead was so the birds or the dead certainly could interfere in this world, but in a spiritual form, or the idea of actually having a mummy sort of getting up and wandering around is, is isn’t there at all, but certainly the idea of spirits, and particularly if you’ve died a bad death, or you’re unhappy, there’s a center there are there are Egyptian ghost stories. You know, there’s one where we’ve got a guy who’s visiting the cemetery, and he gets visited by a ghost who tells me him his life story. So we do certainly have that side of things.

Dan LeFebvre  34:49

Okay, okay. Yeah, I was I was really curious about that, because that’s something that you it’s not so different from a lot of beliefs now of like people coming back and interact acting with spirits and things like that, but also the concept of like you’re talking about putting, putting the Book of the Dead or you know, the map into this graphic so that they can read it, it kind of makes me think, okay, they can actually physically interact with this perhaps, or it’s just kind of a mixture of a lot of different things that I think are not uncommon today just call different things and kind of have often that.

Aidan Dodson  35:26

Like, is it there’s a common human desire not to see death as the end. The differences then then is what then happens beyond are the dead then gone to another place? Or are they still having some kind of interaction with you, because it will give each proper Egyptian to theirs, the burial shame is also a chapel, which goes with it. And then the chapel is what we call a false door, which is the interface between the two worlds, and where offerings will be placed in front of that to pass through to get to the other side, because one of the things Egyptians are always terrified of is going hungry in the next world. And in fact, a lot of the texts on coffins, and two walls are all about making sure there’s enough food, drink, and also clothing available. But also, then ideally, they like the real stuff, the fresh stuff as well. Hence, I was talking about these funeral endowments of fields to provide for food offerings. So that ideally, that would be brought on a regular basis. And that would pass through the false door. And also the spirit could would come to the false door to take on the food. And this one form of the Spirit, the bar could actually then come out and just visit and visit this world.

Dan LeFebvre  36:42

There’s a another kind of concept that we were talking about mummies I mentioned it briefly with the with the canopic jars.

Aidan Dodson  36:52

But one thing, they have five canopic jars in the movie, there are only ever four of them.

Dan LeFebvre  36:58

Okay, okay. But I want to ask about that, because you were talking about how, with ancient Egypt, kind of not really resembling Ancient Egypt. So it made me wonder with the modification process that we see in the movie with the canopic jars and, and even the location of the sarcophagus seems to make a difference in the movie, you know, in this case, we see emotet, because he did this bad thing. His sarcophagus is buried near the base of NuBus, which means that according to the movie, it was kind of funny to have these contrasts, it was either somebody of great importance, or he did something very, very bad. You know, those are the only two two reasons why he might be there. And of course, in the movie, it’s the latter. But is there anything from ancient Egypt like a time period where the moment occation process that we see in the movie resembles that at all?

Aidan Dodson  37:38

Not really, no, because it’s like to reward him or whatever he’s doing. His views have been riffing wrapped up, he’s not there’s not there. Because to ramify improperly to take all the all the all the organs out, you have to then stick it up, desiccate the body for a month, and all those sorts of things. So it doesn’t really, you know, the whole point is that you’re getting a very, very, very, very dead when you’ve had your brain taken out, you’ve had all your organs taken out. You there’s not really much you can do. And also the interesting point is that the although of the orchestra taken out most of the put in the Copic in the four canopic jars, the brain is either left in place or lost altogether. Because the brain you can’t remove it in a form you can then desiccate it and put it in a jar effectively. So about half of the mummies have had their mum their brains removed altogether. And the other half there’s a sort of shriveled husk of the brain in the in the head.

Dan LeFebvre  38:39

Okay, okay, there’s a kind of a key villain that I that we see in the movie they want to ask about when during the mummification process with the monotype, we see the scarabs and they’re thrown into the sarcophagus and they basically eat them alive. Just waves and then we see different points in the movie too. We see the scarabs eating humans like they cover up some of them and then matter of seconds, they leave and there’s just this deal husk of a person left. We’re scarabs used by ancient Egyptians, the way that we see in the movie, not in

Aidan Dodson  39:09

the size, poor defense or Scarab beat terribly um, slandered and libeled in that. Yeah, he’s just he’s just a just a little little little beetle who wanders around in the desert. The reason why the scarab is something faced Egyptians is because there’s two sides, which probably linked together. One is that the scarab beetle pushes around a ball of dung, which is his food. And they look upon that as though it’s the sun being pushed over the horizon in the morning. So when you look at that the Egyptian sun god, he goes through a number of different transformations. But his final one before the dawn is into a scarab beetle, that which point he then pushes the sun over the horizon. as though he was the ball of dung. So that’s the reason why the scarab is a really important thing. It’s the whole, it’s the it’s the vehicle for starting starting the day effectively. So that’s reason why it’s important thing that, but also, the word for scarab is HEPA in ancient Egyptian, and pepper also means to come into existence. And therefore, again, it’s, it’s the scarab is a symbol for take both rebirth because the idea of the sun coming up over the horizon is equated with the idea of rebirth because the sun is being reborn, the sources The sun has died at sunset is being reborn in the in the morning and also come into existence a HEPA HEPA through. So it’s a very, it’s a it’s a it’s important concept of coming into existence. That just so happens that because the way that Egyptian writing works is that pictures of things with the same consonants as a concept may be used for that concept because we don’t we can’t we don’t know the short vowels of a usage of ancient Egyptian. So possibly, it may have been hopper is the scarab beetle and HEPA is to come into existence, but they’ve got the same that same consonants, they can be used for the same thing. It’s the same reason why the sign for life is actually a sandal strap. Because Anke, which is sandals, strap and life. Also, if you haven’t got the short vowels, I’ve got the same consonant. So that’s how these things sort of work. And that’s reason why this scarab is an important thing because it is a form of the sun god and it’s the most creative for the sun god and in the Senate in the context of the dead. You want your ball of dung if you like to be pushed over the horizon by the scarab. So that’s reason why scarabs are such a big thing. They’ve ported Linux in offensive little desert creatures, who now

Dan LeFebvre  42:09

kind of the movie, I mean, they they sure seem pretty

Aidan Dodson  42:13

that there are flesh eating beetles, which actually doctors sometimes used now for cleaning up badly damaged wounds and things. So they picked up the fact that our beetles, which which will eat flesh, but not scarab beetles,

Dan LeFebvre  42:29

so when we see them the scarabs, is it more refer, it’s not really referring to the beetle itself, but the God in form of the Scarab it it sounds like in a lot of contexts, okay. It’s

Aidan Dodson  42:40

basically there’s a lot of it’s either the Sun God himself, or it is the embodiment of the idea of coming into existence. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  42:50

okay. But neither one is really like this is the beetle necessarily like talking about the beetle itself, you know, now

Aidan Dodson  42:56

it’s an original reason why they’ve picked on it is because they’ve seen the beetle pushing this, these balls ball of dirt around, which is where the sort of the idea probably comes from, but this idea is probably sort of 5000 6000 years ago, long before and again, that by the time, this is all set, which I’m assuming Cassetti is around about 1300 BC, which I assume is wherever that bit is that bit of it is set. It’s just probably what they do. And I suspect most people are but unless you were sort of a priest probably would have no idea why my scarab beetle is such a thing. It’s just, that’s what we do. That’s what we have.

Dan LeFebvre  43:38

Yeah, at that point, it’s just you believe it, because that’s what what you’ve been taught your whole life. Yeah, that’s exactly something that we see throughout all of the movie. There’s there’s trapdoors, and booby traps and secret chambers, especially in common Optra. And obviously, the sets are made up for the movie. But for those of us who haven’t really explored ruins of ancient Egypt in person, I have to ask, do any of the Egyptian ruins have the type of booby traps and secret chambers and trap doors that we see in the movie? So

Aidan Dodson  44:08

you’re not booby traps, we do get at certain periods of Egyptian history, some quite elaborate security in tunes whereby you have got corridors which which lead know where you’ve got trapped doors in the floor or ceiling and so on. So that sort of thing does exist. And there are occasion there’s a couple of occasions where they actually moved in a vaguely mechanical manner by using sand as a hydraulic fluid effectively. So the idea that idea that there are that the Egyptians could do that kind of stuff is true, but it’s only a very specific period of time. And it’s no and it’s always not to catch somebody out, in the sense of sort of trap them or whatever. It’s to close off corridors and things so they can’t be penetrated by robbers because that’s the key thing. It’s all to do with with Even robbers out. Otherwise, I think most things were just simply trusted to know to lock doors and guards when it came to sort of stuff outside. So he says you’ve just got a couple of periods none of which actually overlap with when, when that when they saw the arrangement bit of this is set where you have this kind of sort of quite elaborate attempt to try and mislead robbers and and seal off things.

Dan LeFebvre  45:27

Okay, okay. Yeah, I assume that a lot of that was very fictionalized for the movie, but I had to ask.

Aidan Dodson  45:33

Yeah, and I think also, a lot of it is then taken from previous movies, there’s land of the pharaohs is a classic one. Whereby you have this have all the sand sort of closing off a pyramid and things like that. So I think an awful lot of, of the mother of the mummy is derivative, they’ve taken a lot of stuff from other from previous movies, and sort of just juggling around a bit. And suddenly, suddenly, it’s possible not fully understood where the particular trope actually came from.

Dan LeFebvre  46:04

Yeah, well, you mentioned with the torches, you mentioned Indiana Jones before and I think yeah, that’s another thing. You know, there’s so many booby traps and things like that in that series as well, that came out before this 99 movie.

Aidan Dodson  46:15

I think I think land of the pharaohs is actually possibly sort of the starting point for a lot of that sort of things. Jack Hawkins film from the early late 1950s. I think it is with Joan Collins in her first sort of big, big, big starring role. And I think a lot of Allah’s a lot of that kind of special effects to do with Egypt seem to come maybe you can trace back to that particular movie.

Dan LeFebvre  46:40

Okay, okay. Well, you already talked about we talked about Hamanaka. But I want to ask kind of a concept around that, because the beginning of the movie, it’s basically discovered, and then at the end of the movie after defeating the mummy, at least until the sequel, but that’s a different movie for a different day. But we see how many after just kind of imploding on itself and it gets covered up by the sand. And so kind of throughout the, the storyline, or the timeline of the movie is when we realized that Hymenoptera exists, are there any real places that have been discovered and then lost again like that? Not

Aidan Dodson  47:16

at all? No. No, basically, there were basically things which have carried out under the sand, then we’ll excavate excavation and then still, they’re still visible. There’s, there’s, there’s nothing of that kind of scale. Because the whole point point is that, in this huge amount of time, between the Pharaonic times there are a lot of things could just simply were destroyed. And things which remain standing normally, because they were being reused as churches, mosques, people’s houses and stuff like that. So ya know, that what’s what’s what’s there has never, we haven’t lost anything like that at all. The contrast? Actually, archaeologists have redirected things rather than actually sort of things falling down again.

Dan LeFebvre  48:04

Okay. Yep. Makes it makes a lot of sense. I assume, once we discover something is the archaeologists make sure it doesn’t get lost

Aidan Dodson  48:10

again. Exactly. And also how, I’m not quite sure how they sort of kind of lost Hammond butcher. Because, you know, the by again, by the 1920s. When that we’ve that Egypt’s in pretty well surveys and sort of every, you know, even if the deepest parts of the Sahara Desert, so the chances of finding anything, which hasn’t been that kind of scale, which has been lost is a little bit difficult to but again, this is a sort of King Solomon’s Mines and all sorts of Rider Haggard kinds of things. So again, it’s, I think that we need to look, really, it’d be interesting to dive into the mummy, and just see how whether you can trace back each little elements of it to some specific 19th century adventure story or earlier, Hollywood piece of piece of work.

Dan LeFebvre  48:59

Yeah, I bet you there won’t be like one of those times that you see in the movies of the other the different lines connecting to different things, there’s probably a lot of different inspirations there from from the movie, for sure. I’ve talked to a lot of different historians who mentioned, you know, tourists coming to a place and they talk about things that they see in the movie. What’s one of the biggest myths from this or really any movie that people tend to believe about ancient Egypt? That isn’t true? I

Aidan Dodson  49:30

suppose it’s really that some kind of supernatural kind of thing. You get also new ages and so on, also coming into all this kind of stuff. You know, they they certainly had their religious faiths and so on. But most of it was all fairly sort of, well, well set out as far as the idea that anything is built in a sort of particularly esoteric way that we know Pretty well how it’s all how everything is done Egypt, although, you know it’s got spectacular monuments because the interesting history is simply as another country which when the interesting past you do get sort of people who through no cuts, try and sort of have seances in temples and so I’ve I’ve led tour groups before now and you know, not necessarily Mito, which was you’ve seen what some of the others are get up to try a lion sarcophagi guy and get good vibrations for whatever it wherever. So I think that’s the essence in some ways turns Egypt into some kind of sort of fantasy world, rather than emphasizing what actually we’ve got in Egypt is a is a 5000 year old civilization with lots of really, really cool stuff in its own terms.

Dan LeFebvre  50:55

Adding to the fantasy is not helping what is actually there.

Aidan Dodson  51:01

The only thing on the other hand, I suppose, is having seen it, some people who might not otherwise have gone to Egypt might pick up the phone, or go online and book a trip. And that’s, you know, and I think the key that the key sort of antidote to all this kind of stuff is actually to go to Egypt yourself and, and experience what it really is, like, see what the monuments really are like, what the land is really like. And those sorts of things. So, you know, whether it was or whether it’d be sort of films like this, or some of the bizarre, quite dark, legit the documentaries about Ancient Aliens or whatever. Ultimately, if it does actually get some people to look at the real stuff and actually sort of get on a plane to Cairo. Okay, well, at least there’s it might it might drag people through there are people I know, who’ve been dragged into even serious Egyptology by are the sort of wild assures. But then they’ve actually then looked into things properly and moved on like that. So either there’s an Egyptologist and so very much a lover of Egypt. You can’t there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Well, perhaps they can be. But generally speaking, you know it if people think it’s sort of this magic, magical land, and find it still magical in all different different kinds of way. And that’s also good. If you

Dan LeFebvre  52:23

are in charge of remaking the Mummy, what one of the biggest changes that you would make,

Aidan Dodson  52:28

I would probably go back to what I think probably have to be everything quite honestly, I wish me do is go and dig out the script for the original 1932 Mummy. Now there is lots of silly stuff in there. But it’s much more grounded in in theory, and and just isn’t good to study silly in so many places. And there’s there’s a genuine kind of menace to it. Same goes also for the 1959 when I think as well, where it is, it’s their proper horror films, rather than just sort of, because there’s nothing it’s all too many. I think the problem I found that the mummy and also most modern sort of what they would sort of call horror, I suppose it’s all too in your face. You know, the trick is, you know, it’s that there’s like the fate of the first killing in the 1932 Mummy fields. All you just see is a shadow and then that then a guy’s screen. And then so so I think there’s a lack of it also get this lack of atmosphere as well. So I think say that I think if you’re going to the they got it, they got it right in 1932. And they’ve been better off if they’d sent me down a remake with a bit better patch of some bit bit of modern technology and so on. Rather than trying and because it just so many things wrong with it. That you Yeah. Even though and even if you haven’t got a proper living mummy, you’ve got this thing which then transformed into a bald headed non mummified. So if I both have time, he’s not even a mummy at all. So I think there’s there’s a bit of a trade descriptions issue around it as well. So now, I get the feeling the whole problem was that they suddenly said, Hey, what’s next next, and we’re going to remake or remake the mummy? And then then just sort of took the title and a couple of the of the characters and then ignore the rest of it. So yeah, so I’m afraid I think it would have to be go back to the drawing boards. As you could probably, I think you’d probably want to have something you could do something with sort of Vengeful Spirit from Egypt, but it wouldn’t couldn’t be a Desarae mummy if you would have this helps to have somebody who is in debt, you know, because because if you look at the ancient Egyptian literature, there are bad beings out there in the beyond who can do nasty things to you So, but it doesn’t really it’s not gonna be quite produced sort of the action action movie, which clearly they were trying to do.

Dan LeFebvre  55:08

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, back to the drawing board. It sounds like that’s fair. I thank you so much for coming on to chat about the mummy, you’re talking about people learning more. And obviously, there’s a lot of fiction in the movie. But Ancient Egypt, obviously not entirely fiction. You’ve written extensively about it in your book series called lives and afterlife. So my last question is kind of a two parter. For listeners who want to learn more about the real history, can you share an overview of your series and then give a recommendation for where they start?

Aidan Dodson  55:39

Okay, this the series of books I’ve been writing for last all give you seven or eight years now in a series of biographies of individual pharaohs. And in fact, I started off by writing a biography of setting the first the Pharaoh who features in the mummy and the and then the idea of this our lives and afterlife series is to start off by looking at what we know about the history of the person during their own time, then take a first look at the afterlife and says look at their tombs, their money, their their funerary monuments and things like that. But also then to look at their modern afterlife in the sense of how were they rediscovered? Because there’s a because contrary to the sort of the continuity, which is implied in the mummy, there actually is a 2000 year gap between the last time we can actually engage with ancient Egypt, its own terms, I read it script and the rediscovery of how to read this stuff again. So So then we go into how do these people rediscovered? Because most of them had been completely forgotten for 2000 years? So how do we first start discovering these people exist, try and start finding out why, what they did, and so on, and so forth. So this is really what this what this series is all about. focusing mainly on either single fare or group of pharaohs. And the most recent one was on a group of Nubian Nubians, who were pharaohs. During the eight to seven centuries BC. Dubya is the area straddling the border between Egypt and Sudan. And it’s always it has been culturally different from both of those of those places. And it always been a place which was being attacked and exploited by the Egyptians. And then they turn the tables for 100 years, and then they become Pharaohs themselves. So that’s sort of the that’s sort of where, where that comes from. Some years ago, I actually had writer, an introductory book on Egyptian history called monarchs of the Nile, which is aimed very much at sort of anybody who wants to start getting an idea of the history of the subject of history, history of ancient Egypt, so probably something is worth that’s worthwhile looking into. And that’s going to bibliography of other kinds of things. Also, there’s quite a lot of societies out there who offer evening classes, evening lectures. And so since COVID, a lot of these were available on zoom on online. You know, the days when you actually had to go out on a wet February evening to go and get your fix of Egyptology down the local college, you can actually in your own homes and do that. So a lot of that. I mean, in America, there’s a group called the American Research Center in Egypt, who they’ve got local chapters who offer both in person and online stuff. In the UK, there’s thing called East exploration society. There’s a lot of other local societies around as well. So there’s lots of things you can get involved with your local museum, all those sort of ways into the real world of ancient Egypt, rather than the version put out by the mummy.

Dan LeFebvre  58:53

Yeah, well, hopefully that’ll be just be the gateway to actually learning more

Aidan Dodson  58:57

new people who’ve who’ve got in that way. So I’m not gonna I’m not gonna sort of poopoo it. It’s just that people need to understand that the Egypt which is in the mummy, shall we say, business resemblance to the real one of now or ever? Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  59:12

And that’s, I mean, honestly, that’s one of the reasons I started this show was because you know, I’ve curious about the the movies and in the real history behind them to dig into them and starting to, you know, share books like yours, like, here’s a great starting point to learn more about what actually happened. And you know, hopefully get people interested in that. So thank you again, so much for your time and coming on the show.

Aidan Dodson

Very happy to do it.