How Pharaohs Became Media Stars: Ancient Egypt and Popular Culture
Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing (2024), vi, 250 pp.
Contains illustrations
Series: Archaeopress Egyptology, 48
ISBN 978-1-80327-626-7 (pbk); 978-1-80327-627-4 (pdf)
"The appearance of new media and its enormous diffusion in the last decades of the 20th century and up to the present has greatly increased and diversified the reception of Egyptian themes and motifs and Egyptian influence in various cultural spheres. So-called popular or pop culture (cinema, genre fiction, TV-series, comics, graffiti, computer and video games, rock and heavy music, radio serials, among others) often makes use of narratives and motifs drawn from the observation and study of ancient Egypt, updated and reinterpreted in various ways, and which is now the subject of study by scholars of Egyptology. The present monograph seeks to provide new evidence of this interdisciplinarity between Egyptology and popular culture. It explores the conscious reinterpretation of the past in the work of contemporary authors, who shape an image of the Egyptian reality that in each case is determined by their own circumstances and contexts." (Publisher description)
Introduction: “Ich mache mir die (ägyptische) Welt, wie sie mir gefällt” (Egypopcult Project) / Abraham I. Fernández Pichel, 1
Theories on Pop Culture and Egyptology / José das Candeias Sales, 9
The Portrayal of Ancient Egypt in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids / Filip Taterka, 28
Pauline Gedge’s Hatshepsut: Child of the Morning / Maiken Mosleth King, 61
The Persistent Pyramid: Exploring the Creation of Egypt as Religious Foil in Marie Corelli’s Ziska / Sara Woodward, 73
Stephen Sommers’s The Mummy (1999): Modern Legacies of the Tutankhamun Excavations / Eleanor Dobson, 88
Josephus as Source of the Egyptian Sequences in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) / Nuno Simões Rodrigues, 110
From Alma-Tadema to Cecil B. DeMille: The Influence of Nineteenth-Century Painting on Classical Hollywood Films Set in Ancient Egypt / Guillermo Juberías Gracia, 136
Sex, Gender and Sexualisation: Ancient Egypt in Contemporary Popular Culture / Abraham I. Fernández Pichel and Marc Orriols-Llonch, 162
Eternally Maligned as the Power-hungry Femme Fatale: Kleopatra VII in Assassin’s Creed Origins and Other Video Games / Tara Sewell-Lasater, 185
Egypt and Role-Playing Games. Does the World of Darkness Universe Use Ancient Egyptian Sources? / Abraham I. Fernández Pichel and Víctor Sánchez Domínguez, 205
Of Mummies and Memes: A Digital Ethnographic Approach to ‘Vernacular Egyptology’ on TikTok / Samuel Fernández-Pichel, 225
The Road to El ojo de Nefertiti: Representing Egyptian Mythology for Middle-grade Readers / Jesús Cañadas, 240
Theories on Pop Culture and Egyptology / José das Candeias Sales, 9
The Portrayal of Ancient Egypt in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids / Filip Taterka, 28
Pauline Gedge’s Hatshepsut: Child of the Morning / Maiken Mosleth King, 61
The Persistent Pyramid: Exploring the Creation of Egypt as Religious Foil in Marie Corelli’s Ziska / Sara Woodward, 73
Stephen Sommers’s The Mummy (1999): Modern Legacies of the Tutankhamun Excavations / Eleanor Dobson, 88
Josephus as Source of the Egyptian Sequences in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) / Nuno Simões Rodrigues, 110
From Alma-Tadema to Cecil B. DeMille: The Influence of Nineteenth-Century Painting on Classical Hollywood Films Set in Ancient Egypt / Guillermo Juberías Gracia, 136
Sex, Gender and Sexualisation: Ancient Egypt in Contemporary Popular Culture / Abraham I. Fernández Pichel and Marc Orriols-Llonch, 162
Eternally Maligned as the Power-hungry Femme Fatale: Kleopatra VII in Assassin’s Creed Origins and Other Video Games / Tara Sewell-Lasater, 185
Egypt and Role-Playing Games. Does the World of Darkness Universe Use Ancient Egyptian Sources? / Abraham I. Fernández Pichel and Víctor Sánchez Domínguez, 205
Of Mummies and Memes: A Digital Ethnographic Approach to ‘Vernacular Egyptology’ on TikTok / Samuel Fernández-Pichel, 225
The Road to El ojo de Nefertiti: Representing Egyptian Mythology for Middle-grade Readers / Jesús Cañadas, 240
