POP! Movies – The Mummy: Ahmanet

As a little kid, around the age of 6 or 7, my parents gave me a book about Ancient Egypt. I think it was a Christmas gift, an Usborne Pocket Guide; a little pocket or digest-sized volume. I’d heard of Egypt before from church (Exodus and so on) but this was my first real introduction to them as a wider culture. I remember being gripped of the images of the Egyptian gods – particularly the jackal-headed Anubis – and it sparked off a life-long love of Ancient Egypt.

Naturally enough, The Mummy became one of my favourite Universal Monsters. The other day we took a look at the undead version of the Mummy from the upcoming remake, and today we look at her more human form. 

I had a look online but can’t yet find any stills of Sofia Boutella in this costume, so I can’t say whether it’s “accurate”. But it certainly looks more typically Egyptian then most of what we’ve seen of the film so far – white linen dress, lots of gold jewellery, lapis-lazuli-coloured fingernails, kohl-painted eyes and ornate hair*.

Assuming that this film follows the rough formula of the 1932 one and the 1999 one, Ahmanet will look like this in the Ancient Egyptian flashbacks, emerge from the tomb looking like her undead self and then return to a similar look to this once she’s regenerated by killing a few people. I also have a strong suspicion that Tom Cruise’s character will have some kind of psychic/magical link with her. We see in the trailer that he dies and is resurrected – but why? Probably he’s the reincarnation of her lover or something, like a gender-swapped Anck Su Namun.

Even if the movie’s not that great, my love of Ancient Egypt will let me enjoy this figure – it’s a good generic Egyptian princess or priestess figure to go on the shelf. Well done, Funko. 

*On that note, her hair looks totally implausible at first glance – but perhaps not as implausible as you might think. Wealthy Egyptians were very fond of shaving their heads and wearing wigs instead. The climate of Egypt was a little different a few thousand years ago, but it was still damn hot. So by shaving you could look good when necessary, and stay cool the rest of the time.