The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy

336 Pages·2012·3.15 MB·English

by  Roger Luckhurst

the mummy’s curse
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the
Mummy’s Curse
The True History of a Dark Fantasy
R OGER L UCKHURST
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp,
United Kingdom
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© Roger Luckhurst 2012
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First Edition published in 2012
Impression: 1
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ISBN 978–0–19–969871–4
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For Julie
&
i. m. Sally
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the team at Oxford University Press for their support
of this project. Th e book was completed with a six-month research fel-
lowship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. At a time of severe
threat to the survival of humanities research in the university, to receive an indi-
vidual grant felt like a great act of faith. I am therefore grateful to the staff and
grant assessors for making the completion of this project possible. Th e reso-
lutely unfactional and unconditionally supportive environment of the Depart-
ment of English at Birkbeck College continues to make research work a joy in an
era of the quantifi cation of outputs and the immiseration of the universities.
I would like to thank the following for archival assistance: staff at Birkbeck
Library; Malcolm Barres-Barker at Brent Archives for information on the Brit-
ish Empire Exhibition collection; the many librarians who have assisted me at
the University of London Library over the years; the staff of the British Library
in St Pancras and Colindale; Joanna Bowring, Head of Libraries at the British
Museum, for many leads, not least introductions to Nigel Tallis in the Depart-
ment of the Middle East Archive and Patricia Usick in the Department of Ancient
Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum; Stephen Quirke and Rachel Sparkes
at the I nstitute of Archaeology at UCL; the staff of the London Metropoli-
tan Archives; the staff of the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert
Museum; the staff of the special collections at the School of Oriental and
African Studies; the staff of the Victoria and Albert Archive at Blythe House for
access to fi les on Captain H. B. Murray; librarians of the special collections at
the Wellcome Institute for access to the Pett igrew Papers; and to Freda Wilkins-
Jones at the Norfolk Record Offi ce for steering me through the Haggard Papers.
I also thank the librarians at the Courtauld Institute of Art and at the Eaton
Collection, University of Riverside, for helpful access to rare materials. For
queries rapidly answered, I would like to thank staff at the Society of Antiquar-
ies, the British Film Institute, the Egyptian Exploration Society, the Flinders
Petrie Museum, the Reform Club, the Carlton Club, the Royal Geographical
Society, Lincoln’s Inn Library, the Rhode Island School of Design, Treadwell’s
bookshop and the College of Psychic Science.
Acknowledgements | vii
I particularly want to thank Anne Bricknell, great-granddaughter of Walter
Herbert Ingram, who at a late stage provided lots of new concrete details, many
startling leads, some very weird objects and a host of family legends. She also
makes a fi ne Eton mess.
I should perhaps also take the opportunity to thank any Egyptian elemen-
tals that might still be hanging around, for deciding not to kill me off in some
bizarre or comical manner during the writing of this book.
At the early stage, when this project needed impetus to build critical mass,
I received some crucial invitations to lecture and these forced me to push the
project on. Th anks to Josephine McDonagh for an invitation to speak in Oxford,
Jarmila Mildorf in Stutt gart, and Gauri Viswanathan in New York. Surekha
Davies invited me to join a closed seminar of anthropologists and historians to
present material on this project, an intimidating but ultimately very productive
occasion. Later, Rosemary Ashton asked me to contribute to the splendid
‘Bloomsbury People’ project at University College London and the local con-
text for this project was deepened considerably by the wealth of collaborative
scholarship at work there. Th anks also for the many invitations to speak on this
subject over the years in university departments in Belfast, Birmingham, Brus-
sels, Dublin, Glasgow, Keele, Strathclyde, Westminster and York.
What are essentially early and incomplete outlines of this project have been
published in M agic , Science , Technology and Literature , edited by Jarmila Mil-
dorf, Hans Ulrich Seeber and Martin Windisch (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2006)
and in C ritical Quarterly and in H istory and Anthropology. My thanks to the edi-
tors for lett ing me work out my ideas in these pieces.
Individuals who have helped along the way include David Amigoni, Isobel
Armstrong, John Arnold, Anthony Bale, Mark Blacklock, Mark Bould, Peter
Brooker, Ailise Bulfi n, Carolyn Burdett , Claire Burton, Andy Butler, Luisa
Cale, Jan Campbell, Fiona Candlin, Elliott Colla, Steve Connor, Victoria
Coulson, Surekha Davies, Hilary Fraser, Stephen Frosh, David Glover, Jo
Hutchings, Salima Ikram, Matt hew Ingleby, Colin Jones, Cora Kaplan, John
Larson, Rob Latham, Alex Lembert, Colin MacCabe, Scott McCracken,
Edward Meyer, Jim Mussell, Alex Owen, Crispin Paine, Gill Partington,
Christina Riggs, Laura Salisbury, Justin Sausman, Michael Slater, Paul Spir-
ing, John Sutherland, Michael Taussig, Tony Venezia, Sherryl Vint, Minna
Vuohelainen, Marina Warner, Nicholas Warner, Alex Warwick, Neil White-
head, Martin Willis, Jo Winning, Sue Wiseman and Anne Witchard.
I’ve been lucky enough to develop some of the ideas in this book aft er invita-
tions from the BBC producers Stephen Hughes and Laura Th omas for various
radio pieces, and have also writt en on the area for the Times Higher Education .
My thanks to them all.
I ’m very grateful to scholars who have shared their unpublished work with
me, including Ailise Bulfi n, Elliott Colla, Gabriel Moshenska, Beverley Rogers
viii | Acknowledgements
and Alex Warwick. Th ose working on the history of Egyptology have proved a
remarkably patient and generous bunch.
I am grateful to the many organizations that have granted permission to re-
produce images: they are listed separately below.
Th e fi rst half of this book was draft ed in lively conversation with my friend
and colleague Sally Ledger. Th e latt er half was writt en in the wake of her sudden
death, the dialogue brutally cut off . It is undoubtedly a poorer book for that,
but nonetheless I off er up this work in memory of an inspiring friend.
Th is book is also, as always, for Julie, who much prefers mummies to all that
other rubbish I write about. Julie has been a resolute supporter of this project
from the off and has knitt ed enough scarves and socks during this long process
to kit out a pharaoh for virtually any eventuality in the aft erlife. Indeed, she is
so well versed in the area that in Egypt our tour guide around the Valleys of the
Kings and Queens consistently rubbished my pronunciation of Hatshepsut
whilst uniformly and lavishly praising hers. I’m totally over this, of course, but
I would still like to point out that it sounded to me like we said the e xact same
thing . In truth, Julie has been a fantastic desert guide for helping to shape the
vast dunes of information that swept across my desk into meaningful routes
and I thank her for all her advice and wisdom over the years.
Acknowledgements | ix