The fascinating story of Egyptian Mummy
May 28, 2023
  • Circulation
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Organiser
  • ‌
  • Bharat
  • World
  • G20
  • Editorial
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • More
    • Defence
    • RSS in News
    • Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
    • My States
    • Vocal4Local
    • Business
    • Special Report
    • Culture
    • Sci & Tech
    • Entertainment
    • Education
    • Books
    • Interviews
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Obituary
    • Podcast
SUBSCRIBE
No Result
View All Result
  • ‌
  • Bharat
  • World
  • G20
  • Editorial
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • More
    • Defence
    • RSS in News
    • Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
    • My States
    • Vocal4Local
    • Business
    • Special Report
    • Culture
    • Sci & Tech
    • Entertainment
    • Education
    • Books
    • Interviews
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Obituary
    • Podcast
No Result
View All Result
Organiser
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Bharat
  • World
  • G20
  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Culture
  • Defence
  • RSS in News
  • My States
  • Vocal4Local
  • Subscribe
Home General

The fascinating story of Egyptian Mummy

Archive Manager by WEB DESK
Dec 3, 2012, 12:00 am IST
in General
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterTelegramEmail

Dr R Balashankar
The Mummy’s Curse: The True Story of a Dark Fantasy
, Roger Luckhurst,  Oxford University Press, 

Pp 368 (HB),  £18.99

The Egyptian mummies have caught the Western imagination for some time now. There have been books and movies reliving the horror revenge wreaked by the undead. Roger Luckhurst in a fascinating book The Mummy’s Curse: The True Story of a Dark Fantasy recaptures this myth. One of the most widely publicised of the Egyptian excavations was that of the tomb of child king Tutankhamen, called King Tut, made in 1923. For years after the excavation, stories of death and destruction that purportedly visited all those involved in the exercise hit headlines in newspapers.

“It was said that on the day that Carter had laid bare the entrance to the tomb his pet canary had been devoured by a cobra, that emblem of pharaonic power.” Romours like this abounded. Several deaths in the families of people who had anything to do with the excavation were attributed to this curse.

Egyptologists explain, says Luckhurst, that there was no curse on the tomb of Tutankhamen and only two had been recorded from other tombs. Some explain that there are messages in tomb complexes that praise the visitors if he or she honors the name of the dead; “the threat is secondary, alternative consequence if you do not honor the name.” How did this notion spread so wildly? And why was there so much attention to the Egyptian excavations? Carter found the press attention “bewildering” and at times “embarrassing.” He said, “One must suppose that at the time the discovery was made the general public was in a state of profound boredom with news reparations, conferences and mandates.” It was recalled by someone that the story of Tutankhamen broke ‘after a summer journalistically so dull that an English farmer’s report of a gooseberry the size of crab apple achieved the main news page of the London metropolitan dailies.’

There have been several other cases of ‘serial threats.’ Like in the story of Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, misfortune and untimely, violent deaths follow the trail of the precious stone belonging to a deity in India. The story of Koh-i-Noor was believable enough for the British crown to break it (re-cut) before adorning the crown of the queen. “The curse of Tutankhamen was not the first story to circulate about Englishmen stuck down by the Ancient Egyptian dead. Indeed, in many ways the Tutankhamen story followed a script that had already been prepared for it by at least two prior instances that were widely known in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods,” says Luckhurst and goes on to explore two of the best stories of Thomas Douglas Murray and Walter Herbert Ingram.

According to him the curse story is merely a “symptom of a curdling in the cultural imagination about Egypt…the curse could be re-situated to become a prism through which we can perceive large shifts in Victorian society.” Further on, the author discusses two major exhibitions held in London and Paris which showcased the Egyptian culture in an enormously exaggerated tones. The Western museums struggled to present the Egyptian antiquities in a scientific spirit but the objects somehow did not gel well, given the circulating rumours.

Lord Byron, in one of his famous poems Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage presents the curse that befalls the man who destroyed the ruins of Athens. The allusion here is to Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, who sawed off and cut the relics in Greece and shipped them to England. It is interesting that Elgin led one of the most misfortune lives. Luckhurst narrates to illustrate how literary narratives give imaginative coherence to objects, often in open defiance of scientific artefaction. According to psychoanalyst curse is the ordinary way in which the weak retaliated upon the strong.

So, are these curse stories true? “Contemporary popular culture in the West continues to be stuffed with figures of the undead, with vindictive ghosts, post-apocalyptic zombies, feral vampires and shuffling mummies. Each of these has its own highly specific set of historical origins and allegorical resonances, but all are a trace, I would argue, of a history of violence that returns to haunt modernity’s idealist aim. Unravel the mummy and what we finally encounter is the agony that travels as a secret sharer within modernity,” says Luckhurst. Though his conclusion is definitive that there are no curse threats, reading the book, one gets more and more sucked into the belief of the ancient curse transcending generations. The rationale mind yields to the suspicion of the unknown. That probably is the magic of the ancient. Well informed study into the mummies, Luckhurst’s unbiased style of writing leads us into the world of tombs and ruins and the men who uncovered them to the world. Roger Luckhurst writes on popular culture, and “is interested” in odd spaces between science and popular supernatural beliefs. He also teaches at Birkbeck College, University of London.

(Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP UK)

ShareTweetSendShareSend
Previous News

The first Indian scientist to receive the Nobel Prize

Next News

Congress Cash Transfer HoaxWalmartism gone berserk. Congress goes all out to facilitate market for foreign monopoly

Related News

Karnataka: Slain BJP leader P Nettaru’s wife loses her job with change in govt; following outrage CM appoints her back

Karnataka: Slain BJP leader P Nettaru’s wife loses her job with change in govt; following outrage CM appoints her back

Veer Savarkar’s sacrifice, courage inspire Indians even today: PM Modi in ‘Mann ki Baat’

Veer Savarkar’s sacrifice, courage inspire Indians even today: PM Modi in ‘Mann ki Baat’

Nari Shakti finds new momentum in 9 years of PM Modi governance

Nari Shakti finds new momentum in 9 years of PM Modi governance

Pakistan poses threat to Norway: Report

Pakistan poses threat to Norway: Report

Special Rs 75 coin launched to mark inauguration of new Parliament

Special Rs 75 coin launched to mark inauguration of new Parliament

How the new Parliament represents the idea of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”

How the new Parliament represents the idea of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”

Comments

The comments posted here/below/in the given space are not on behalf of Organiser. The person posting the comment will be in sole ownership of its responsibility. According to the central government's IT rules, obscene or offensive statement made against a person, religion, community or nation is a punishable offense, and legal action would be taken against people who indulge in such activities.

Latest News

Karnataka: Slain BJP leader P Nettaru’s wife loses her job with change in govt; following outrage CM appoints her back

Karnataka: Slain BJP leader P Nettaru’s wife loses her job with change in govt; following outrage CM appoints her back

Veer Savarkar’s sacrifice, courage inspire Indians even today: PM Modi in ‘Mann ki Baat’

Veer Savarkar’s sacrifice, courage inspire Indians even today: PM Modi in ‘Mann ki Baat’

Nari Shakti finds new momentum in 9 years of PM Modi governance

Nari Shakti finds new momentum in 9 years of PM Modi governance

Pakistan poses threat to Norway: Report

Pakistan poses threat to Norway: Report

Special Rs 75 coin launched to mark inauguration of new Parliament

Special Rs 75 coin launched to mark inauguration of new Parliament

How the new Parliament represents the idea of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”

How the new Parliament represents the idea of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”

Pakistan: Imran Khan’s party leader accuses Islamabad Police of stealing his car

Pakistan: Imran Khan’s party leader accuses Islamabad Police of stealing his car

Veer Savarkar: The Unparalleled Legacy of a patriot son of Bharat Mata

Veer Savarkar: The Unparalleled Legacy of a patriot son of Bharat Mata

RJD makes “coffin” jibe at new Parliament building; BJP says register “treason charge”

RJD makes “coffin” jibe at new Parliament building; BJP says register “treason charge”

Amid Shlokas and Mantras PM Modi installed the ‘Sengol’ at the New Parliament building 

Amid Shlokas and Mantras PM Modi installed the ‘Sengol’ at the New Parliament building 

  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Cookie Policy
  • Refund and Cancellation
  • Delivery and Shipping

© Bharat Prakashan (Delhi) Limited.
Tech-enabled by Ananthapuri Technologies

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Bharat
  • World
  • Editorial
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Defence
  • Culture
  • Sports
  • Business
  • RSS in News
  • My States
  • Vocal4Local
  • Special Report
  • Sci & Tech
  • Entertainment
  • Education
  • Books
  • Interviews
  • Travel
  • Health
  • Obituary
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • Circulation
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Refund and Cancellation

© Bharat Prakashan (Delhi) Limited.
Tech-enabled by Ananthapuri Technologies