In the 19th century, fiction novels of travel and horror became popular, and Egypt’s mysterious ruins and strange artifacts produced many new twists on these old stories. Among the first was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote The Ring of Thoth (1890) about a mummy that is brought to life. In the early 20th century, …
Perhaps the most enduring of the legends is that of a living mummy and the curse of the pharaoh. Both are supposedly deadly to archaeologists who disturb the dead. Tales of living mummies began in the New Kingdom period (1550–1070 BCE) when the story of “Santi-Khamose and the Magician” (also called “Khaemwaset and the Mummies”) …
The need to “prove” the Bible caused the birth of biblical archaeology, but the archaeological proof of the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt has yet to be discovered. Nonetheless, Hollywood has played a role in keeping the legends alive. In 1954, the film The Valley of the Kings was released by MGM Studios. Filmed in Egypt, …