Director: Keith Melton
Written by: Arabella Cecil
Narrated by: Christopher Lee

• Official Site

Documentaries are not viewed for the actors in them. Most of the time re-enactments are performed by second-rate actors. Sometimes a documentary will be viewed simply for who is narrating it. In this case, it is conceivable that people might flock to this documentary simply because Christopher Lee is the voice-over for the story it tells.

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs takes its viewers on a journey into ancient and noble Egypt, complete with its royal Pharaohs and polytheism. It brings to life one of Egypt's most celebrated Pharaohs, Rameses II The Great, who reigned for sixty-six years. Along with Rameses was his beautiful wife, the beloved Queen Nefertari. The story is over 3000 years old and preserved in the walls of the great pyramids, scattered along the Nile river and buried by endless mounds of desert sand.

According to the translations of the millions of hieroglyphic drawings on the walls of the pyramids, erected for Rameses, this pharaoh and his queen built some of the most beautiful and renowned pyramids in all of Egypt. Much of what modern science knows today about the process of mummification comes from the digging and recovery of this Pharaoh's tombs.

The exact science of mummification remains a mystery to this day.  It is suspected that the complete list of ingredients and methodologies of embalming in ancient Egypt died with the last high priest. This has proven disheartening to the Egyptologist, archaeologist, and even medical scientist of today because it is within knowing and understanding this art of preserving the human body that we come to understand the human condition, so many years ago, and take from it the clues to unraveling the mysteries of today's most baffling and destructive diseases.

The movie treats viewers to CGI visual effects of both Rameses and Nefertari tombs, complete with a detailed reproduction of the drawings, murals, treasures and artifacts found in each. There are aerial views of the actual pyramids as they are seen today in the Valley of the Kings, as well as other marked sites along the Nile.

Stories of piracy and tomb raids captivate the audience as they learn how scientists try to recreate and piece together the methods of mummification, using a body donated to medical research to be put through the process. Using a control to determine where  an optimal place to extract DNA would be, scientists gather information on how to obtain long strands of DNA from a 3000 year-old mummy—still intact.

Revealing the information preserved by the mummy's DNA may help find answers to today's modern medical conundrums on how to cure some of the most deadly and debilitating diseases.

By studying DNA from mummies, scientists can see how diseases of ancient times have evolved to be diseases of today, not to mention how some people—thousands of years ago—managed to live unaffected by these diseases. Perhaps, within their DNA there may be some key code that created a protein which provided some immunity to a particular illness. Tracing the evolution of the illness' DNA and the protein that provided resistance from the illness, may unlock key information on how to develop cures for these illnesses suffered by people today.

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs will entertain, educate, intrigue, mystify, captivate and leave one or many hungry for more knowledge on this subject that is as well-preserved as the very specimens for which it represents.

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Read or add comments about this item.

No. 4 :

what clues do mummies leve us?

Submitted by kaylee • 2007-11-26 14:13:12

No. 3 :

Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! bdiyfcfvxrwg

Submitted by qjdulcwirf • 2007-07-06 08:09:16

No. 2 :

how is mimmification seen today?

Submitted by Ray • 2007-06-10 07:46:32

No. 1 :

I've never been to a museum movie before, but I think I have to check this out!

Submitted by Ray • 2007-04-24 16:19:28

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