The actual historical figure Caesarion
(Ptolemy Caesar) disappears from records in 30 B.C. at age 17, shortly after
Cleopatra’s suicide. He is presumed to have been assassinated by agents of Octavius,
later to become Augustus Caesar, but there is no evidence to verify Caesarion’s
death.
The ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Latin
spoken in The Threat of the Mummy is authentic. The hieroglyphic
inscription inside the mummy case is an actual passage from the ancient
Egyptian “Book of Gates,” but the hieroglyphic banners in the ritual sequence
are modern translations of appropriate phrases from English into ancient
Egyptian.
“Ta-mera” in the ancient Egyptian language is literally
“land-beloved,” and was a term the ancient Egyptians often used for their
country, which was usually referred to as “Kmt,” or “black (land)” due to the
fertile soil around the Nile. “Nefer”
means “beautiful” and “Hor-pa-nurwy” is “Horus-the-triumphant.”
The Greek words kai su teknon; (“kai su, teknon?”)
can be translated as “Even you, child?” They were the actual dying words of
Julius Caesar to his friend Brutus, as quoted by the ancient biographer
Suetonius, and were later translated into Latin as the more familiar “Et tu,
Brute.”
One of the two papyrus texts that Caesarion
is seen writing in The Threat of the Mummy is a passage from a now-lost
history of Egypt written in the 2nd century B.C. by a Greek-speaking
Egyptian priest named Manetho. The other text is the initial portion of Julius
Caesar’s famous De Bello Gallico (About the Gallic Wars), a
staple of introductory Latin classes to this day.
The Egyptian beadwork items and the stone
slab with the hieroglyphic inscription seen during the opening credits of The
Threat of the Mummy are all genuine ancient artifacts. However only two of
the artifacts in the Ancient Egyptian museum display scenes are authentic
antiquities—a coin struck in 4th century A.D. Alexandria Egypt, and
a 4th century A.D. clay pot. All the other items are modern
replicas, although some were actually made in Egypt. The papyrus is real, but
of recent manufacture.
The silent movie seen briefly on television
in The Threat of the Mummy is a clip from the 1912 version of Cleopatra,
produced by and starring Helen Gardner (although she does not appear in that
clip).
The recording of Enrico Caruso singing
“Celeste Aïda” heard during the closing credits figured prominently in Anne
Rice’s novel The Mummy: or, Ramses the Damned.