1999's "The Mummy" has managed to hold up incredibly well, even as the years turn into decades. Speaking of things that age gracefully, the mummies in "The Mummy" may have more historical accuracy than you might imagine, along with many other aspects of his historical fantasy. From the clothes to the architecture to the names and identities of the ancient Egyptian characters brought back to life for the film, most inspirations for these stories have some root in ancient historical fact. Of course, there are some total fabrications, as you might expect with any story about the living dead. Still, these are things 1999's "Mummy" actually gets right about history.
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00:00Few of us really expect a Hollywood movie to be historically accurate.
00:05This is why it's so surprising that there are real grains of truth in The Mummy.
00:09Let's give credit where it's due.
00:11These are the things that The Mummy actually gets right about history.
00:16The villain at the center of The Mummy certainly seems fake.
00:20After all, he is a half-mummified, shambling corpse for most of the film and a pretty devious
00:25guy overall.
00:26That pretty firmly places Imhotep in the world of Hollywood fantasy, right?
00:32Not so fast.
00:33There really was a famous ancient Egyptian named Imhotep.
00:37The real Imhotep hails from the time of the pharaoh Djoser, according to American Research
00:43Center in Egypt.
00:44Djoser sat on the throne during the Third Dynasty in the Old Kingdom, which took place
00:49from 2686 to 2613 BC.
00:53He directed that a pyramid be made for him, and the resulting Stepped Tomb pretty well
00:58secured the king's name in history.
01:01As for Imhotep, he's often penned as the architect who designed the Stepped Pyramid, though there's
01:06no direct evidence of this.
01:08His name shows up on multiple monuments, often with honors like Royal Seal Bearer and Great
01:15of Sears, and he was known to be involved with design and sculpture.
01:20Imhotep's reputation continued long after his death.
01:23In fact, only a century after Imhotep's life, he was even venerated as a god in some circles.
01:29It's a strong indication that the real Imhotep was a big deal.
01:34In The Mummy, the Book of the Dead is an evil-looking book that is inadvertently used to resurrect
01:40an undead villain.
01:41There's also a counterpart to the Book of the Dead, the Book of Amun-Ra, which ultimately
01:45sends the big bad villain back to the underworld.
01:50"...of the dead."
01:57While there is no such book, there really was a set of ancient Egyptian texts called
02:03the Book of the Dead.
02:04The American Research Center in Egypt reports that this book is actually a collection of
02:09papyrus texts that were written by a number of different authors.
02:14Also known as the Book of Going-Forth-by-Day, these texts were intended to help newly dead
02:19souls make their way safely through the trials of the afterlife and into paradise.
02:24It wasn't until 1842 that Carl Richard Lepsius, an early Egyptologist, first assembled these
02:31disparate texts as a single document, according to National Geographic.
02:36Lepsius' organization of the texts gave the impression that they were all from a single,
02:41cohesive document, leading some to the idea that there was a definitive Book of the Dead
02:46as seen in the film.
02:48The Hollywood version of Anaxunamun is an ancient femme fatale, yet there is a grain
02:52of truth to her presence on screen, starting with her name.
02:56The real Anaxunamun was the daughter of 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten, a pretty notorious
03:02and quasi-heretical king of ancient Egypt.
03:06According to World History Encyclopedia, Anaxunamun was first called Ankhesenpahaten, meaning
03:12she lives through Aten, in reference to her father's worship of a single sun-centric deity,
03:17Aten.
03:18It appears that Ankhesenpahaten had a very close relationship with her father, even being
03:24named one of his brides.
03:26After Akhenaten died in 1336 BC, the cult of Aten collapsed, and much of Egypt reverted
03:33back to polytheistic worship.
03:36Surviving members of the royal family cut the Aten out of their names, including another
03:40child of Akhenaten, Tutankhaten, the boy who was his father's successor.
03:46Anaxunamun first appears in The Mummy in little more than some gold and black body paint,
03:52along with some strategically placed strings of beads and bits of gold plating.
03:57It is true that sometimes large harems were part of the royal household.
04:01As for Anaxunamun's attire, ancient Egyptians could be surprisingly libertine with their
04:07clothing choices, especially when it came to high-ranking women.
04:11Her dress actually has a historic precedent in real beaded dresses worn by ancient women.
04:17Fashion History Timeline reports that decorative bead-knit dresses were probably worn over
04:22linen shifts or worked directly onto a fabric base.
04:26However, it also says that researchers are divided on the point, with some suspecting
04:31that the bead-knit dresses may have been worn alone.
04:34Anaxunamun's beaded ensemble remains well within the bounds of historical accuracy.
04:41Perhaps one of the most unbelievable things in The Mummy is Imhotep being mummified alive.
04:47After all, as per the Smithsonian, ancient Egyptian mummification involved removal of
04:53the vital organs like the lungs, heart, and brains, so there's no way that anyone was
04:58ever mummified alive, right?
05:00Well, yes and no.
05:02There's no evidence that any ancient Egyptian person was still alive when the mummification
05:07process started, but the practice of becoming a mummy while alive is a documented tradition
05:13in some Buddhist countries, where it was part of a very serious religious ritual practiced
05:18by monks.
05:19In Japan, the now-defunct practice is called shukosenbutsu, according to Atlas Obscura.
05:25Adherents of the Shingon sect of Buddhism attempted self-mummification between 1081
05:30and 1903 AD.
05:32Generally, the process took at least three years, involved a diet of foraged food, and
05:38required intensive meditation.
05:40The intention was to purify a monk's spirit and also to winnow away any fat or water that
05:46can contribute to decomposition.
05:48As part of the process, some monks drank tea made from a tree that was also used to make
05:54lacquer, which was both toxic and may have had antibacterial effects.
05:59Towards the end of the process, the emaciated but still meditating monk was lowered into
06:04a pit.
06:05Other monks would seal the opening and later check if the process was a success.
06:11While the mummy likes to make pretty quick work of Evelyn Evie Carnahan's nerdy persona,
06:16turning her from a buttoned-up librarian to a somewhat sultry adventurer, her time in
06:21the library is much closer to the truth than the movie's fictional city of Hamunaptra.
06:27Though it may be hard to spot while the film is running, eagle-eyed viewers can spot some
06:32accurate historical details.
06:34Evie is first seen managing a series of bound reports from the Egypt Exploration Society,
06:39a real organization that was originally known as the Egypt Exploration Fund before changing
06:45names in 1919.
06:47Given that the film's modern setting is in 1926, that's a nice little detail.
06:53Evie's also spotted reading some real-life books from the time period, including The
06:57Dwellers on the Nile, which was published in 1885.
07:01By the 1920s, there was already a well-established academic history of Egyptology that would
07:07have kept Evie's library busy.
07:10The man who arguably sets off the events of The Mummy is the ultra-jealous pharaoh Seti
07:15I.
07:16He's soon murdered by the devious Imhotep and Anaxuna Mun, but it's his actions that
07:21set up the series of disasters that reach all the way to 1926 and beyond.
07:27In reality, Seti I was a 19th Dynasty pharaoh, meaning that he lived centuries after the
07:37real Imhotep's death.
07:39He was a true empire builder, fighting the enemies of ancient Egypt, updating the nation's
07:44infrastructure, and building a series of eye-catching structures.
07:48Far from being a one-note plot point, the real Seti was kind of a big deal in ancient
07:53Egyptian society.
07:54Seti I wasn't killed by his retainers, but researchers are now pretty certain that one
07:59of his successors really was murdered by people close to him.
08:03The harem conspiracy of Ramesses III's reign was perpetuated by a group of harem women
08:09who, working with other members of the royal household, conspired to kill the aging king
08:14and crown prince and place them both with a secondary heir.
08:17The conspiracy failed, and the conspirators were executed, proving, perhaps, that The
08:22Mummy is right.
08:24You never really escape the consequences of killing a pharaoh.
08:27Surely, you may think, the sets of The Mummy are a Hollywood invention.
08:32They must be so exaggerated from the original historical sites that the look of the film
08:37is far removed from reality.
08:39Not exactly.
08:40Depending on the time period, temple architecture in ancient Egypt could be downright gaudy
08:46and not unlike a dramatic Hollywood set.
08:48Much of the most elaborate religious architecture was intended to both appease the gods and
08:54impress both Egyptians and outsiders.
08:56Quite a few rulers of the new kingdom built their reputations on grand architecture, including
09:01Amenhotep III and Hatshepsut, a longtime female pharaoh.
09:06According to PBS, Rameses II was especially fond of structures packed with inscriptions,
09:12carvings, and statuses, even when as far as improving earlier structures with his energetic
09:18architectural drive.
09:20Given all the embellishments, they may well have nodded in approval at the excesses of
09:24Hollywood set design.
09:26Curses are a much-discussed topic in the world of Egyptology.
09:30There is, of course, the now-infamous King Tut's curse, which supposedly brought awful
09:36luck to the team who opened Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922.
09:40However, a closer look at the circumstances of the so-called curse shows some pretty inconsistent
09:46evidence, including the fact that Howard Carter, the archaeologist who helmed the excavation,
09:52lived for 17 years after opening the tomb.
09:55That said, while stories like King Tut's tomb curse are pretty overblown, archaeologists
10:00have found some curse-like inscriptions in ancient Egyptian tombs.
10:05Ancient Egyptians weren't above cursing each other via magic, according to the process
10:09of cursing in ancient Egypt.
10:11Examples include magic spells recovered from scraps of papyrus and pottery, as well as
10:16execration figurines meant to represent the object of a curse.
10:21The practice of destroying someone's name to deny their immortality via memory is also
10:26documented, a ritual that is done to Imhotep at the beginning of The Mummy.