The Science of Monsters

We all have the image of a bandage-wrapped mummy lumbering about after emerging from its sarcophagus. But when did mummies, in the sense that we know them, become prevalent in pop culture and media? One of the earliest examples of undead mummies is The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, a novel written by Jane C. Loudon in 1827. This early science-fiction work is about an Egyptian mummy named Cheops, who is brought back to life in the twenty-second century. Another woman, Louisa May Alcott, wrote Lost in a Pyramid; or, the Mummy’s Curse in 1869 in which some seeds found in a tomb bring back the curse of sickness and early death.

What was the inspiration for the Universal Studios monster, The Mummy? The 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb received worldwide press coverage. The tomb was nearly intact and allowed the world to see what a sarcophagus looked like. It sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt and inspired film producer Carl Laemmle Jr. to find a story similar to Dracula or Frankenstein but based on Egyptian horror. The story behind The Mummy resembles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Ring of Thoth (1890) in which a mummy is resurrected in a museum. Jack Pierce, a Hollywood makeup artist who also created the iconic look for Frankenstein, was brought on board to transform actor Boris Karloff at 11 a.m. on the day they filmed The Mummy’s opening sequence. Karloff’s makeup consisted of cotton, collodion, and spirit gum. He was then wrapped in bandages treated with acid and burnt in an oven. Filming began at 7 p.m. and ended at 2 a.m., followed by nearly two hours to remove all of the makeup. Karloff found the removal of gum from his face painful, and overall found the day “the most trying ordeal I [had] ever endured.”¹

Boris Karloff’s character in The Mummy, Imhotep, is discovered wrapped like a mummy but having been buried alive. He is brought back to life by the reading of a scroll and sets out to find his lost love. Are there cases of people actually being buried alive? Several Edgar Allan Poe stories explore this fear including The Premature Burial (1844), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), and The Cask of Amontillado (1846). The chance of being buried alive was a real threat prior to modern medicine. With the absence of scientific certainty, the public, and even medical professionals, were less able to determine if a person was actually dead. Some tests were done on the bodies to see if the person would wake up. These included pinching the person’s nipples and even inserting a hot poker into the rectum. No, thank you! A famous case of premature burial took place in 1891 when a girl by the name of Octavia Smith was presumed dead and buried after suffering from a mysterious illness. A few days later several others in the community came down with a similar illness. It was discovered that their shallow breathing was caused by the tsetse fly, which causes African Sleeping Sickness, characterized by symptoms of extreme lethargy. Octavia’s grave was dug up to reveal a terrifying sight: scratch marks lining the coffin, her hands bloody, and a look of terror on her dead face.

Taphephobia, the fear of being buried alive, led to some interesting inventions. Safety coffins had several features to put people’s minds at ease: glass tops for observation, ropes connected to bells in the graveyard to signal passersby, and even breathing tubes to allow for plenty of air while the person buried alive waited to be rescued. Even though these features were used for decades, there are no known people who were saved by these inventions from being buried alive.² Boris Karloff’s character in The Mummy could have used an alert system to let others know he was wrapped and buried alive.

Ancient Egyptians believed in an immortal soul and thought that embalming, the act of temporarily preserving a body for funeral or transport, preserved the body so that the soul could someday return. The science of embalming began over three thousand years ago in Egypt. Bodies in Egypt decomposed quickly due to heat and bacteria. The mummification process allowed for bodies to be preserved and not disintegrate. There are five steps in the process:³

1. Remove the brain: this was done through the nostrils with special hooks.

2. Remove the internal organs: these were removed through the chest and then placed into special jars to be buried with the mummy.

3. Immerse the body in salt: this step thoroughly dried the body.

4. Dehydrate the body in the sun: this step got rid of any moisture left.

5. Wrap the body in bandages: hundreds of yards of bandages were needed to wrap a single body.