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The Shocking Truth: Science, Religion, and Ancient Egypt in Early Nineteenth-Century Fiction

While Egyptian mummies in fiction of the late nineteenth century and beyond are often typecast as vengeful aggressors, the earliest reanimated mummies were put to quite different purposes. These icons of the ancient world were resurrected in order to question the role of morality in the modern world. Using galvanism to reanimate the dead, Jane Loudon (néeWebb, 1807-1858) and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) portray their respective mummies as figures who seem likely to reveal the nature of the afterlife, but ultimately remain silent on the secrets of the grave. While Loudon and Poe portray Cheops in The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (Loudon, 1827) and Count Allamistakeo in “SomeWords with a Mummy” (Poe, The AmericanWhig Review, April, 1845) as figures who possess the power either to confirm the truth of Christianity or to discredit it entirely, they subvert their undead authority by shifting the focus of the narrative. Instead of providing definitive answers on the nature of the afterlife, the role of the soul after death, and revealing ancient wisdom of the Egyptians, both mummies consistently turn the narrative back to a commentary on the role of knowledge in the nineteenth century. Loudon’s and Poe’s narratives are uniquely placed within nineteenth-century Egyptianthemed fiction both due to of their early publication dates and because their mummies are given an actual voice, albeit one which is strictly controlled. Late nineteenth-century fiction—such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Lot 249” (Harper’s Magazine, September, 1892) and Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars (1904)—in contrast, tends to relegate the mummy’s role to one of silent avenger. Loudon’s and Poe’s mummies also interact with science in a manner unique to the early nineteenth century. Their mummies engage with the philosophical nature of science, passively exploring the moral implications of using galvanism to reanimate a corpse rather than themselves wielding galvanic power. “[I]t was not until the fin de siècle that ancient Egyptian characters would seize electricity for themselves,” Eleanor Dobson (2017) notes, “usurping the Western scientist and asserting their own superior intellectual enlightenment.” Loudon and Poe’s use of ancient Egypt to ponder science in its early nineteenth-century infancy reveals a society teetering the edge of abilities hitherto unexplored, the possibilities and potential dangers seemingly endless. Loudon gives the voice of her mummy, Cheops, a moralising tone in order to explore how Christianity should limit the margins of man’s knowledge. Her text, although quirky and imaginative, is also heavy-handed and cautionary. She specifically addresses the importance of resisting inquiry into the afterlife and probes a religious understanding