Egyptomania

First, of course, is the romantic, spellbinding narrative arc of Imhotep and Ardeth Bey, which influences the plot of this movie.

Then we'll look at the bizarre, destructive Victorian phenomenon known as Egyptomania, from public mummy unrolling parties to grinding human remains into oil paint, which brought the mummy craze around this time.

And third, we'll look at the actual organic chemistry of mummification and the media myth behind the curse of the pharaohs.

So let's begin with our narrative component, the 1932 film, The Mummy.

Deprived of his magic, Imhotep rapidly ages thousands of years and seconds, collapsing into a pile of dry bones and dust.

Frank and Dr. Muller rush in, the spirit of the ancient princess departs, and Helen awakens as her modern self, safe in Frank's arms.

And this is another classic and atmospheric horror, but where did Hollywood get this obsession with ancient Egyptian curses and resurrecting the dead? To find out, we had to look at the wild 19th century craze known as Egyptomania.

Long before Boris Karloff stepped onto a movie set, Western Europe, especially Victorian Britain and post-revolutionary France, were obsessed with Egypt.

And this is about mummies.

Um, and people compare it to both Edgar Allen Poe, who himself has been the subject of a Chilumanati episode before, uh, and H writer Haggard, who was a writer who was stricken with Egyptomania himself, uh, and wrote one of the more sexy mummy-esque stories we discussed last time, which was called She.

And even Anne Rice, who co-wrote the more recent fuckable mummy trilogy, Ramsey's the Damned, with her own son, which we also read a tiny bit of last time.

She wrote that with her son? Christopher Rice.

But there's no real sources for this guy being a medical guy.

Right.

But during Egyptomania, when people didn't know as much about the history of ancient Egypt as they do now, they just took his legend for reality because he was so long heralded as this like medical wizard.

made him a popular figure among people fetishizing ancient Egypt in an orientalist way, and then boom, bingo, bango, bongo for a second time in his life, even though he probably didn't do a fraction of the stuff he's famous for.

I think I love the political context in which we know that Shelley was writing as well, because he wrote this in 1818.

It was the height of Egyptomania.

So we know that, you know, Napoleon's campaigns were going on and things were being taken.

Right.

you've

got the various phases of Egyptomania and so on where you've got like in the ancient Rome and in Napoleonic France and then around the 20s with Tut's tomb being discovered.

In more recent years, has there been any particular pop culture Egyptian material that you particularly enjoy or does your you know position of knowledge in the field to say i can't i can't get over you know the inaccuracies or i can't get over the the kind of orientalism that you often see in these kinds of things

my simple answer to that is what is if i never see another film about cleopatra or the exodus i'll be happy Because I'm so sick of those being the only films that Hollywood will go to when it wants to make a movie about ancient Egypt.

Uh, you know, the, the, the materials from this discovery still tour around the world.

Um, you know, King Tut inspires his own brand of, of Egyptomania.

So, um, uh, but we have to remind ourselves like, yeah, this was a huge deal, and we learned and are still continuing to learn so much from it.

And at the time too, it was huge.

The discovery made international news.

It was, uh, you know, a bonafide international sensation.

Uh, it- we've discussed Egyptomania on the show before.

There've been multiple waves of Egyptomania throughout history.

Egyptian ornament could sell sacred mystery and tobacco in the same stroke.

So that's why it's not quite enough to say that Tutankhamun caused Egyptomania.

But what it did was turn a long-running Western fascination into something immediate and personable and endlessly reproducible.

And that story arrived at an audience that was primed for escape.

We're back in mummy mania.

We're back in Egyptomania.

And they're scenting those

areas of museums to make it smell more like.

And so that's when you start to see the Egyptian architecture revival or when Egyptian imagery became part of Thelema and Crowley's whole zag and all those guys with the little fake Egyptian headdresses and the Baphomet staff with the like Egyptian imagery around it and all this weird stuff.

And you could get like Egypt style cigarette boxes from an ad in the fucking newspaper.

And you could buy like cheap home furnishings that have Egyptian elements on them, like the Sims, because Egyptomania, as they called it then and still do now, actually, it's not I was saying mummy mania earlier.

It's actually Egyptomania.

And as we'll discuss, like, part of this is that, uh, Universal's coming off of the success of Dracula and Frankenstein, and they're like, "Let's do another.

Let's do one that taps into, um, uh, you know, Egyptomania," and, um, and things that have, you know, been happening in the world concerning ancient Egypt.

And then [laughs] like, basically the conversation is like, "Oh, okay, what book do you wanna base it on?" "I don't know, find me one." [laughs]

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, uh, just a few quick notes about the importance of this film in overall mummy fiction.

Uh, this is coming from, uh, one of my favorite texts on Egyptomania.

It's the book Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy by Ronald H. Fritz, um, or Fritze.