Mummies in News and Pop Culture<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This past week, Liverpool University Press<\/a> released The Life and Times of Takabuti in Ancient Egypt: Investigating the Belfast Mummy<\/em> edited by Egyptologist Professor Rosalie David and bioarchaeologist Professor Eileen Murphy. Takabuti originally lived in Thebes during the 25th Dynasty and died around the age of 20 to 30 years old around 600 B.C.\u00a0 Since 1835, she home has been in Belfast, Ireland.\u00a0 She was believed to have died from a knife wound to her upper left shoulder, but the wound is now believed to have been caused by the blow of an ax.\u00a0 Hence, this woman was likely the victim of murder by an Assyrian soldier or by her own people. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n **<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mention of animal mummies often conjure images of Ancient Egyptian mummified cats, ibises and other animals.\u00a0 On IFL Science<\/a><\/em>\u2019s website, Rachael Funnell reported on a National Academy of Sciences study on mummified macaws found at burial sites in the Atacama Desert.\u00a0 Dating back to 1100 – 1450 CE, these colorful birds were not native to the desert.\u00a0 Their feathers were important symbols of wealth and the study revealed that macaws were transported alive to the desert and mummified at the burial sites, often in unusual positions.\u00a0 Sadly, the study revealed that the birds were also not treated well while living.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n **<\/p>\n\n\n\n Facial reconstruction technology helps visualize what KV55 mummy may have looked liked.\u00a0 Smithsonian Magazine<\/a><\/em>\u2019s Isis Davis-Marks reported the mummy, which was discovered in 1907, is significant because it is speculated to be King Tutankhamun\u2019s father, Akhenaten, known as the heretical Pharaoh for introducing monotheism during the 18th Dynasty.\u00a0 DNA testing established the mummy as the son of Amenhotep III and the father of Tutankhamun, which would point the identity of the mummy as Akhenaten.\u00a0 The mummy\u2019s age has been ascertained to be around 26 years old, however the historical records suggest that Akhenaten died around the age of 40.\u00a0 Given the DNA results, perhaps the mummy is Akhenaten\u2019s younger brother, Smenkhkare, of which little is known.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n **<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, in pop culture history\u2026.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n March 29, 1916<\/strong> marks the birth of cinematographer Jack Asher, who worked on Hammer Film Productions\u2019 The Mummy<\/em> directed by Terence Fisher and starred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. In a 1976 interview between Jan Van Genechten and Fisher (printed in Little Shoppe of Horrors<\/em> <\/a>#19), the conversation touched on lighting and photography, providing some insight into Asher\u2019s craft:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n JVG:<\/strong> The lighting and photograph are of course also very important in your films\u2026 What exactly is everybody\u2019s function in that respect when you are directing? Of the camera operator, the director of photography, you yourself\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong> In England directors of photograph don\u2019t want to interfere with their operators, as they do on the continent.\u00a0 Continental directors of photography want to have more control over their operators than they do in England.\u00a0 It can work both ways, but I think it\u2019s easier for a film director to work with the camera operator, without actually interfering.\u00a0 But let\u2019s take the director of photography, or let\u2019s call him lighting camera man.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to leave his style to him.\u00a0 Different lighting camera men have different styles of working.\u00a0 Within each one\u2019s style you can get a certain type of mood if you tell him what you\u2019re aiming at.\u00a0 If you want for instance an actor not to be seen in features but in silhouette, you tell him so.\u00a0 In\u00a0 the first rehearsal he will work from that.\u00a0 Then again it is a co-operative thing between the director and the lighting camera man.\u00a0 But you can\u2019t tell him to change his style.\u00a0 Each lighting camera man has his own individual style.\u00a0 Jack Asher, who did the early Hammer ones, had a very distinctive style of lighting, which was quite different to Arthur Grant\u2019s.\u00a0 He had a more realistic approach to the situation.\u00a0 Jack Asher\u2019s was almost theatrical lighting with little tricks, like color slides placed over the lights and so on.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n JVG: <\/strong> I think Jack Asher was also very emotional\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:\u00a0<\/strong> Oh indeed he was.\u00a0 Indeed\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n JVG: <\/strong> Much more so than Arthur Grant\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n TF:<\/strong>\u00a0 Arthur Grant approached it with a more realistic interpretation.\u00a0 But Arthur would give a good job if you told what you were aiming at.\u00a0 If you asked him not to see people\u2019s features and to do it with back-lighting, which is very important at certain moments within the field, he could give you almost theatrical lighting like Jack Asher did.\u00a0 Which of the two is the best I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know exactly how audiences react to this. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n **<\/p>\n\n\n\n March 30, 1998,<\/strong> saw the release of Bram Stoker\u2019s Legend of the Mummy<\/em>, directed by Jeffrey Obrow.\u00a0 Starring Louis Gossett Jr., this film is based on Bram Stoker\u2019s novel, The Jewels of Seven Stars<\/em> (1903). According to Rotten Tomatoes<\/a><\/em>, this mummy film scored 15%.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n **<\/p>\n\n\n\n March 31, 1973,<\/strong> George Woodbridge who placed P. C. Blake in The Mummy<\/em> (1959, dir. Terence Fisher) passed away in London at the age of 66.\u00a0 He started his acting career in the 1930s and made his film debut in 1940\u2019s The Big Blockade <\/em>(dir. Charles Frend).\u00a0 He appeared in several horror films over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n **<\/p>\n\n\n\n