ALL72045

This is another set where the unwary customer, expecting to find models of historical mummies, is going to be disappointed. Interest in ancient Egypt, and mummies, developed after the French, and later the British, began documenting the civilisation in the 19th century and taking bits of it home with them. However things really took off in 1922, when the discovery of the largely intact tomb of Tutankhamun sparked a world-wide obsession with all things ancient Egyptian, and press nonsense about curses started people thinking about resurrected ancient Egyptians causing trouble. The film 'The Mummy' (1932) with Boris Karloff created our image of mummies as monsters, and since then everyone from Brendan Fraser to Abbott and Costello, Tom Cruise to Scooby Doo has had to deal with them.

This set contains 12 mummy poses, and as the box implies the style of these is very much Egyptian, even though mummies can be found in many other parts of the world too. All are wrapped in bandages of course, often none too well (which is understandable if they are 3,000+ years old), although strangely none are wrapped round the head, allowing us to enjoy their bare skull. For some, bandages are enough, but others have items of clothing which, we would suggest, are probably superfluous under the circumstances, although these certainly add to the Egyptian look about them. This even seems to include armour in some cases, although we are unclear as to exactly what can 'kill' a mummy, apart from disassembling them, so wearing armour may be more of a habit than a useful thing to do. The weaponry largely speaks for itself, but again much of it is reminiscent of ancient Egypt, even if some items are considerably larger than they would actually have been. Some however is not at all Egyptian, and the twin-bladed polearm in the second row is pure fantasy.

Given that these are humans that are well past their sell-by date, there must be a lot of leeway given in terms of their appearance, but actually these are very nicely sculpted. The bandages are nice and clear, as are the various bits of clothing, kit and weaponry. Usually the faces are a good indication of sculpting skill, but as everyone here has lost theirs we will have to say simply that the skulls look good too. The poses are the usual offerings given the chosen weaponry, and there is a lot of weapon-in-each-hand going on here, which adds to the apparent menace. The first figure in the second row commits the cardinal sin of holding his weapon squarely at the back of his head, which with human ligaments and tendons in the elbow and wrist would be impossible, but again this mummy probably has no ligaments or tendons, so that's okay.

Nice sculpting there is a plenty, but there is a lot of flash too, particularly around the legs, which cannot be explained away. However this is a really fun set, and one of our favourites in this range, although it does rather cry out for a corresponding set of terrified archaeologists and adventurers ready to meet them in combat.