Plot Summary (The Mummy) The Mummy (1999)
Thebes, 1290 BC: the curse begins with a love story
In Ancient Thebes, the high priest Imhotep conducts a forbidden affair with Anck-su-namun, the Pharaoh's mistress. Her body is painted head to toe — any smeared paint proves another man's touch. When Pharaoh Seti I discovers the affair, the lovers murder him. Anck-su-namun stabs herself so that Imhotep can escape and later resurrect her. Imhotep steals the black Book of the Dead and races to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, where he begins the resurrection ritual. The Pharaoh's bodyguards, the Medjai, interrupt the ceremony before it can be completed. Imhotep is condemned to the Hom-Dai, the worst of all ancient curses: he is mummified alive with flesh-eating scarab beetles sealed inside his sarcophagus. The curse is so terrible it has never been performed before, because if the victim ever rises, he will be an immortal plague upon the earth.
1923: two expeditions converge on the City of the Dead
Three thousand years later, Rick O'Connell is a soldier in the French Foreign Legion commanding a doomed garrison at the ruins of Hamunaptra.b3 His unit is overrun by a charging desert force.[^nc1] His companion Beni Gabor slams the temple door in his face.b3 Rick fights until his guns click empty. The attackers suddenly retreat in terror when a supernatural force rises from the sand beneath Hamunaptra. Rick stumbles into the desert as the sole survivor.b3
In Cairo, Evelyn Carnahan is a librarian and aspiring Egyptologist who has been rejected by the Bembridge Scholars for lacking field experience. Her brother Jonathan brings her a puzzle box he claims to have found on a dig — in truth he pickpocketed it from a drunk in a Cairo casbah. Inside the box is an ancient map to Hamunaptra. The museum's curator, Dr. Terence Bey, dismisses the City of the Dead as myth, then secretly burns the section of the map showing its exact location. He is later revealed as a Medjai agent.
Evelyn traces the puzzle box to Rick, now rotting in Cairo Prison awaiting execution. She bargains with the corrupt Warden Gad Hassan: this man knows the location of Hamunaptra. The Warden haggles a twenty-five percent cut of any treasure. Rick is cut down from the gallows mid-hanging.
Rick, Evelyn, and Jonathan board a Nile steamer headed upriver. Aboard the same boat, a rival American expedition — Henderson, Daniels, and Burns — is guided by Beni, who has sold his knowledge of the city to the highest bidder. That night, the Medjai attack the steamer and set it ablaze to prevent anyone from reaching Hamunaptra. Evelyn is thrown overboard and Rick saves her. The passengers survive, and in the morning the two expeditions race across the desert on camel and horseback. Rick's group reaches Hamunaptra first.
Hamunaptra: the excavation and the awakening
The two groups dig on opposite sides of the underground complex. Evelyn's team discovers the base of a statue of Anubis and, hidden beneath it, the black Book of the Dead. The Americans find a compartment containing five canopic jars — Imhotep's cursed organs — and a sealed sarcophagus bearing the marks of the Hom-Dai. Ardeth Bay, leader of the Medjai, warns both groups to leave. They refuse.
That night, Evelyn reads an incantation aloud from the Book of the Dead. The recitation awakens Imhotep. A swarm of locusts erupts from the sand. Burns wanders into a dark chamber where the partially regenerated Imhotep takes his eyes and tongue — the first regeneration kill, restoring the organs the Hom-Dai had taken from him.b17 Each chest-opener Imhotep consumes brings him closer to full human form; the risen victim of the Hom-Dai also brings with him the ten plagues of Egypt.b15
Cairo: the plagues and the hunt
The expeditions flee to Cairo, but Imhotep follows. He finishes Burns, draining him to complete another stage of regeneration, and the city's drinking water turns to blood.b22 Beni, recognizing which way the wind blows, switches allegiance and becomes Imhotep's servant.b19 The Medjai reveal the full danger: once Imhotep regenerates completely, he will raise Anck-su-namun from the dead by sacrificing Evelyn — whose resemblance to the ancient princess makes her the vessel for the ritual.b24 If the ritual succeeds, Imhotep will be invincible and the world will face an apocalypse.
Imhotep unleashes the plagues on Cairo — water turning to blood, then boils and sores, fire and hail, locusts, and finally darkness over the city.b22 b25 Dr. Allen Chamberlain is killed offscreen and Daniels is taken inside Evelyn's locked room before Rick can intervene.b26 b27 Now in fully human form and commanding a chanting mob of plague-stricken slaves, Imhotep takes Evelyn to Hamunaptra for the resurrection ceremony; Henderson, the last chest-opener, will die there by scarab beetle, completing Imhotep's regeneration.b29 b32
The climax: scholarship defeats the curse
Rick, Jonathan, and Ardeth Bay race back to Hamunaptra. Rick fights through Imhotep's mummified priests while Jonathan works to translate the inscriptions on the golden Book of Amun-Ra — the counterpart to the Book of the Dead. Evelyn, chained to the altar as Imhotep begins the ritual over Anck-su-namun's corpse, stalls for time.
Jonathan reads the incantation from the Book of Amun-Ra. The spell strips Imhotep of his immortality, rendering him mortal. Rick stabs Imhotep with a sword. As Imhotep staggers into the pool of eternal souls, his last words — in ancient Egyptian — translate to: "Death is only the beginning." The spirit of Anck-su-namun, briefly resurrected, flees back into the underworld rather than save Imhotep.
Hamunaptra begins to collapse. Beni, weighed down by the treasure he has been hoarding, is trapped inside and consumed by scarab beetles. Rick, Evelyn, and Jonathan escape on camelback as the City of the Dead sinks into the sand. The Warden's camels are laden with enough treasure to make the group wealthy. Ardeth Bay watches them ride off and salutes them. Rick and Evelyn kiss as they ride into the sunset.