ABSTRACT
If Frankenstein’s monster warns of the dangers of playing God, Dracula divulges repressed sexual urges and Mr. Hyde represents the dark side of the human personality (Towers 1996), what ontological dilemma does the mummy represent? Appropriated by the public and media from the world of Victorian and Edwardian Egyptology, the mummy—one of the paramount icons of horror in nineteenth-century literature and twentieth-century cinema and television—has long served as an Other-figure, whether to censure colonial plundering of Egypt’s heritage with its notorious curse or endorse lucrative exploitations of the country’s image. The meanings and sociocultural functions of mummies have changed over time (Day 2006), but while those associated with Victorian literature and late twentieth-century popular culture have been explored in some detail, more remains to be said about the mummies of mid-twentieth-century cinema. 2 Their ontological status has not been fully explored, partly as a consequence of academic neglect and partly because another character type with whom they are allied, the High Priest, who directs them to kill their enemies, has been overlooked.
