Issue No.588
Heritage
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30 May - 5 June 2002 Issue No.588 Heritage |
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Dig Days: The flying mummy
Mummies are believed to have magical powers and their secrets have long touched the hearts and imagination of the public. People said mummies could move or leave their tombs, and that there are curses connected to them. Hollywood producers have cashed in on this widespread cult and succeeded in making movies that have further inspired the public's imagination, capturing the fancy of adults and children alike.
Mummies became headline news after the revelation in 1881 of the secret cache at Deir Al-Bahri, which contained about 41 royal mummies. After they were brought to the surface, they were taken from Luxor to Cairo by boat, and on the day the ship set sail women dressed in black lined the sides of the Nile in mourning while men stood in stoic silence to say farewell to their respected ancestors.
The late film director Shadi Abdel-Salaam, made a memorable film called The Night of Counting the Years (popularly known as The Mummy), in which our famous movie star Nadia Loutfi captivated audiences with her astonishing performance. This film won international acclaim and is still often shown abroad.
While I was earning my PhD in Philadelphia in 1983, the film was screened at the Cultural and Educational Bureau of the Egyptian Embassy. My dear friend Mohamed Ghoneim was the embassy's cultural attaché at the time, and he saw to it that The Mummy was screened at universities, colleges and libraries all over the United States. I was invited to attend the showings and introduce the film, and to talk about the Abdel-Rassul family in Luxor who had made the discovery. There I had an opportunity to tell the American audience about Ahmed (Pasha) Kamal, our great Egyptologist around the turn of the 20th century, who pushed for the training of Egyptians in a field that had until then been monopolised by Westerners.
An American magazine once published a very strange article. It claimed there was an Egyptian mummy in Saqqara that dated back some 2,500 years to the 26th dynasty, and that it lay inside a limestone sarcophagus. The article said people watching the sarcophagus saw it open and watched the mummy levitate about two feet above the ground for eight hours before it fell gently back into place in the sarcophagus to rest for 16 hours. It went on to describe how the mummy "flew in the air slowly in a circle around the sarcophagus". The article even mentioned that a scientist, Bubouchile, claimed it was similar to the waking and sleeping habits of human beings.
The article went on to claim that scientists were endeavouring to solve the mystery and explain the phenomenon. They specifically mentioned that Egyptian, Italian and French scientists were trying to solve the mystery. The Legend of the Flying Mummy, as was to be expected, enthralled the public.
Scientists and Egyptologists, of course, could not explain the claimed strange behaviour of the mummy, because no scientific explanation could be given. Consequently, an English magician was sought to try to solve the dilemma and determine whether trickery was involved, which made workers and scholars alike witness the amazing flying mummy. Was it a joke that captured the imagination, as mummies tend to do? In films mummies are shown walking very slowly. This was the first "evidence" that they could fly.
The magician reputedly examined the sarcophagus and found nothing out of the way; there was no string or wire that could be used to deceive observers. He claimed that the mummy flew without any intervention from humans. "It is true that we have a flying mummy", said the astounded magician in an interview.
One scientist said that the mummy belonged to an Egyptian priest who knew the secrets and knowledge of the ancient Egyptians and that he had come back to us. Bubouchile commented that the ka was a vital component, a part of the soul of the person, and that if mummification was carried out perfectly, then the ka would be able to fly in the after life, but that if the mummification was poorly done then the mummy would fly in the air around the tomb because it was not permitted access to the nether world.
Newspaper reporters called me non-stop to ask whether the claim was true or false. I said that I had never heard anything about the flying mummy. I called the director of Saqqara and he told me that no "scientists" were working at Saqqara, nor, indeed, had they found any new mummies recently. I found out, however, that a film crew working on the very marketable theme of mummies had invented this story, and that they were working with an Egyptian mummy expert.
Can anyone believe in a flying mummy? I think our imaginations are wont to work overtime, sometimes.... but, what about the mummy of Ramses that was found in Atlanta, Georgia...
To be continued...
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