We've had a lot of fun researching this game. However, please don't be intimidated by the long list of materials that follows: first, everything that you need to know about ancient Egyptian practices and beliefs will be included in the game materials, and second, we can't be true to our mummy movie sources without at least a few historically inaccurate howlers!
Fiction (Mysteries):
Lynda S. Robinson
Lord Meren is the chief investigator for the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Very interesting with much fascinating detail, but who knew that ancient Egypt was so angstful?
 | Murder in the Place of Anubis |
| Murder at the God's Gate |
| Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing |
| Eater of Souls |
| (also Drinker of Blood, which we haven't read yet) |
Lauren Haney
Set during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, Lieutenant Bak is part of the Medjay police at the fort at Buhen (in Nubia, or lower Egypt). Lots of action.
| The Right Hand of Amon |
| A Face Turned Backward |
| A Vile Justice |
Elizabeth Peters
Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson are Victorian/Edwardian era archaeologists, excavating at many interesting sites in Egypt and encountering homicide regularly. Well-written with a meta-story throughout the series; however, we don't recommend reading them all in an orgy, because Amelia can get rather annoying in large doses. Enjoyable, and written by a real-life Egyptologist.
| Crocodile on the Sandbank |
| The Curse of the Pharaohs |
| The Mummy Case |
| Lion in the Valley |
| The Deeds of the Disturber |
| The Last Camel Died at Noon |
| The Snake, The Crocodile, and the Dog |
| The Hippopotamus Pool |
| Seeing a Large Cat |
| The Ape Who Guards the Balance |
| The Falcon at the Portals |
| He Shall Thunder in the Sky |
Movies
For atmosphere, we've been inspired by several recent movies with derring-do and archaeologists. There's last year's "summer blockbuster" The Mummy. And even though there weren't any mummies, you can't mention movie archaeologists without recognizing Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Here's a bunch of mummy movies for your possible enjoyment (we've seen the ones in bold) and to get you in the proper frame of mind:
| The Mummy (Universal, 1932) With Boris Karloff. The classic mummy film. Good, and creepy. Even though special effects in 1932 were not very special, Karloff makes the movie. Well worth seeing. |
| The Mummy's Hand (Universal 1940) This one's pretty lame, although unintentionally funny. (Grassy areas outside the temples?) Actually, one of its virtues is its very predictability--about five minutes in, you can guess the entire plot, and congratulate yourself as it unfolds. |
| The Mummy's Tomb (Universal 1942) |
| The Mummy's Ghost (Universal 1944) |
| The Mummy's Curse (Universal 1944) In our researches into the Mummy Movie genre, we have discovered that there are three different categories: Good Mummy Movies (not to be confused with the general "Good Movie" category), Wonderfully Bad Mummy Movies, and Horribly Bad Mummy Movies. This one is Wonderfully Bad: quite (unintentionally) funny and illogical. You might think that lumbering through the Louisiana swamps (really!) might have bad effects on a desiccated corpse, but it actually appears to do wonders for Princess Ananka's complexion! |
| Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (Universal 1955) [We're so disappointed that we haven't been able to find this one to rent.] |
| The Mummy (Hammer 1959). Typical Hammer horror; interesting flashbacks to ancient Egypt. |
| The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (Hammer 1964) |
| The Mummy's Shroud (Hammer 1967) |
| Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (Hammer 1971) |
| Bram Stoker's The Mummy (? ?) Yes, the man whose claim to fame is Dracula also wrote about mummies, in a little-known novel called The Jewel of the Seven Stars. And if the film adaptations of it are any indication ("The Awakening" is also based on it), there's a reason why this novel is long-forgotten. This is a rotten movie, with cheap special effects, an incomprehensible and illogical plot, and just-plain-lousy acting. Definitely Horribly Bad, with a last scene memorable since it's obvious that someone suddenly must have remembered that they'd wanted an R rating! |
| The Awakening (Solo/Orion/EMI 1980) With Charlton Heston as a crazed Egyptologist. Really. It's hard to believe that this actually made it into the theatres. It only lasted one week, though, which was a mercy. The editing is atrocious--after cuts, we kept having to ask each other where we were now and what was going on. We never were able to figure out the topography of the tomb site and why people/objects were going up and down with cranes. The actresses for Heston's wife and assistant looked so similar we kept having to figure out from the context who he was with. All that, plus an awful script, terrible acting, and stupid special effects. Horribly, Horribly Bad. Worse than Bram Stoker's The Mummy, even, although The Awakening had access to better props and filmed on location in Egypt, the Cairo Museum, and the Egyptian gallery in the British Museum. What a waste! |
| Russell Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy (? ?) Now that we've seen the two previous movies, this one doesn't seem so bad. The special effects are OK, the acting's OK, the plot's OK. It's all so OK, it just ends up boring. However, if you can manage to stick with it all the way through, there's a pretty interesting twist to the ending. Can't say it was worth the wait, though. (Notice Christopher Lee--Dracula in countless Hammer horrors--in the first scene!) |
| The Mummy (Universal 1999) Not a great film, but a wonderful inspiration for a game and certainly in the Good Mummy Movie category. Great special effects, inspiringly bad research (five canopic jars?), and characters who already belong in a LARP--who else would prepare to open a door sealed for three thousand years by readying their guns? |
Museums
Yes, go spend a day at the Field Museum! The Egyptian tomb exhibit is really cool, and the museum store is a real budget-breaker--too much neat stuff. The Art Institute has the "Pharaohs of the Sun" exhibit running until September 24th; it's way cool, although sadly, the period is very different from the era we're working with for this game (we'll just have to write a different game for it!). And don't forget the Oriental Institute.
During the summer, we took a class at the Field Museum called "Egyptian Magic 1." We enjoyed it quite a bit. Some friends gave us a hard time for not telling them about it so they could join us, so we'll tell everyone: The next class, "Egyptian Magic 2: Temples, Priests and the House of Life," will be Saturday mornings, starting October 7th. We can give you more details if you're interested.
Hieroglyphics
We loved having an excuse to begin learning hieroglyphics.
| Thomas F. Mudloff and Ronald E. Fellows, Hieroglyphics for Travellers. Cool spiral bound book, written by the teacher of the Egyptian Magic course, to boot. |
| Mark Collier and Bill Manley, How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphics. |
| Goelet & Faulkner, The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Full text, complete with images from an authentic papyrus. |
| E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Egyptian text, transliteration, and translation, with a scholarly preface. |
| E. A. Wallis Budge, A Hieroglyphic Vocabulary to the Book of the Dead. |
Non-Fiction
| Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs. Excellent reign-by-reign history. Great place to start on Egyptian history. |
| Bob Brier, Egyptian Mummies. "Unraveling the secrets of an ancient art." Terrific book, written using the research Brier did for his own experiment with human mummification (really). With a great section on "The Mummy in Film and Fiction." |
| Vicki Leon, Uppity Women of Ancient Times. Beware a book on historical figures that prides itself on "witty, street-smart prose." I'm not sure who the audience for this book is supposed to be; with only a page or two on each woman, there's just enough room for a juicy story or two, without any kind of historical context, so it reads like the Ancient Enquirer. But, hey, it was five bucks. |
| Howard Carter and A. C. Mace, The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen. Only $9 (gotta love Dover Books). Fascinating, with many photos taken during the excavation. |
| E. A. Wallis Budge, Tutankhamen: Amenism, Atenism and Egyptian Monotheism. |
| Treasures of Tutankhamun. The catalog for the Tutankhamun exhibition that toured during the late seventies. Unbelievably gorgeous. |
| Pharaohs of the Sun. "Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamun." The catalog for the exhibition currently at the Art Institute. The articles are very interesting, and the photographs gorgeous. However, no photo could possibly reproduce the impact of the colossal statues from Karnak. Go see it! |
Children's Books
Hey, don't laugh! Some of these are really good. Besides, Gail had them left over from her homeschooling days.
| Elizabeth Payne, The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. This is an excellent overview of Egyptian history, including the history of archaeology in the region. Highly recommended as a first-look at the subject. If you want to read just one book, I seriously suggest this one. |
| Geraldine Harris, Ancient Egypt: Cultural Atlas for Young People. Lots of cool maps and photos. |
| David Macaulay, Pyramid. Demonstrates the design and construction of a (fictional) pyramid. |
| Tony Allan, The Time Traveller Book of Pharaohs & Pyramids. Lots of detailed pictures. |
| Rosalie David, Growing Up in Ancient Egypt. |
| Aliki, Mummies Made in Egypt. (A Reading Rainbow book!) |
| Judy Donnelly, Tut's Mummy: Lost . . . and Found |
| James Cross Giblin, The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone. |
| Edupress, Ancient Egypt Activity Book |
Other
| Mummy Second Edition. A World of Darkness sourcebook, White Wolf. Yep, this is really "other" and we're kind of embarrassed to include it in this list. However, the folks at White Wolf have obviously done WAY more research than most mummy movies; there's a lot of interesting stuff here on Egyptian concepts of magic and much good background info. The problem is that you have to know enough Egyptian history to know what's real and what's World o' Darkness. But there is a wonderful bibliography. |
