1999 remake of The Mummy
for a sem priest.
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| "Home of Imhotep, High Priest of Osiris, Keeper of the Dead" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Narrator in the prologue of the 1999 remake of The Mummy |
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| Yes, a real Imhotep did exist, although he was around a long time before the time prologue of the film was supposed to depict. This is set in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BCE ) and the real Imhotep lived in the Old Kingdom (2575-2150 BCE) many years before this. He was a High Priest but he was certainly in favour, never embalmed alive and had nothing at all to do with scarabs. To find out about the real man behind the name read on... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lindsey sent me the nice picture you can see beside this text. The real Imhotep, who was a scribe and an architect is famous in Egyptian history for building the first pyramid in Egypt, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. The great architect went down in history for his learning and achievements and later in the Middle Kingdom when they were trying to reclaim all that was great and good Imhotep ended up being deified as god of medicine and learning. He even has a temple at Memphis. The picture of him opposite shows the great man in his godly role, he holds a 'was' sceptre which means 'dominion'.. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Following this discussion there is also something a little odd about the spoken Egyptian used in the 1999 film. The original 1932 Mummy did a wonderful job and wrote this along the inside of Im-ho-tep's coffin: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This first word reads as Imhotep (meaning 'I come in peace' - note the moving legs which add to the meaning in Egyptian) and the second word says chief priest ('netjer hem tepy'). In the film his also mentioned as being High Priest in the temple of the sun, which is not shown, but he could have been as Amen-Ra was a solar god and had many temples.. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The problem with the spoken Egyptian in the remake occurs when Seti addresses Imhotep as "Iy sim" in that first scene which translates as calling him a plain 'Sem' priest. This was not a particularly important priets and just one who read out prayers and such at the rituals held in the Egyptian temples, certainly not a high priest. Whether this is Seti being rude to Imhotep and calling him a minor servant, or it is a problem with the Egyptian translation I am not sure. If Mr Smith who did the Egyptian for the film reads this and can enlighten me I would love to hear from him. There are a lot more complicated things about this translation that I would like to discuss but which I am not going to bother you with here, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The hieroglyphic for a sem priest. |
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