Mummy unwrapping brought Egyptology to the public
Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - 09:01
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Mummies have been objects of horror in popular culture since the early 1800s—more than a century before Boris Karloff portrayed an ancient Egyptian searching for his lost love in the 1932 film "The Mummy." Public "unwrappings" of real mummified human remains performed by both showmen and scientists heightened the fascination, but also helped develop the growing science of Egyptology, says a Missouri University of Science and Technology historian.