One by one, the archaeologists are picked off - death is the only punishment for the recipients of the mummy's curse. Not the plot of any one film in particular, but we all know the supposed fate that befalls anyone who desecrates a pharaoh's tomb. You likely also know about the discovery of King Tutankhamun and with it, arguably the most famous curse story of them all. But where exactly do these stories of marauding mummies and ancient curses come from? There were actual hieroglyphs warning of curses left by the ancient Egyptians in a number of tombs, but the idea of the mummy as a piece of contemporary folklore has its origins, like many figures of gothic horror, with the Victorians.
‘EGYPTOMANIA'
“The history of the Victorians in Egypt is fascinating,” Lauren R Bruce, author of the popular blog Gothic Bookworm, explains. “It stems from colonialist violence. In the early 1800s, just after the Napoleonic campaign, there were large numbers of travellers and tourists, both professional and just for leisure, heading to Egypt.” The French campaign into Egypt began in 1798 and saw a wealth of historical artefacts removed and taken back to France, where these objects began to be studied by European scholars and academics for the first time. Jean-François Champollion became the first man to decipher hieroglyphics in 1822, leading to him becoming known as ‘the father of Egyptology'. A growing curiosity in the culture of the long dead civilisation
