Mummy

As we watch Brendan Fraser glide in an airplane over the desert sands, on his way to save a woman in a cave, we realize what was missing from "The English Patient. " Mummies. An army of them. Plus a clattering mass of flesh-eating beetles, plagues of locusts and fire, and flashbacks featuring an ancient Egyptian priestess who wears nothing but beads. That's how you spice up a love story. Lyrical dialogue, parallel narrative structure, panoramic photo-graphy are fine as far as they go, but when a movie reaches the two-hour mark, you're better off blowing up a platoon of mummies with a stick of dynamite.

A mummy that may be ancient Egypt's most powerful female pharaoh has been discovered near Luxor in the Valley of the Kings in a "lost" tomb recently reopened by an American archeologist. A scientific examination of the mummy is under way to try to identify the body, thought to be that of Queen Hatshepsut, who died in 1482 BC. Last year Donald Ryan, an archeologist from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington state, was given authorization to search Tomb 60 by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

In the back room connected to the classroom, Mary Montabana, 11, and Lacey Bolland, 11, turned Mirenda Watkins, 11, into a mummy. But no just any mummy - Cleopatra's mummy. Mary prepared a tunnel that would lead to "Cleopatra's tomb. " These elementary students are not scientists or archaeologists - at least not yet. But they are learning about the Middle East as part of the annual Lansdowne Friends School project. All grades are learning different aspects of the region, from history to art. Anne Donnard, 11, had served in the previous week as the model for the King Tut mummy.

David O'Connor has no particular attachment to any of the dozen or so mummies he hangs out with, but he loves his sphinx. "This is a wonderful sphinx. Magnificent. I really like it," said the eminent Egyptologist, warmly patting the 3,000-year-old monument on its stone paws. "It's really the largest, best-preserved sphinx outside of Egypt," explained the University of Pennsylvania professor and associate curator of the University Museum's Egyptian department. But it's the magnificent stone head of Pharaoh Ramses II that gives O'Connor special pride and pleasure.

"Monster Squad," a horror comedy starring Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht and Duncan Regehr. Directed by Fred Dekker. Screenplay by Shane Black and Fred Dekker. Running time: 76 minutes. A Tri-Star release. At area theaters. Can the Wolfman drive a car? Weighty - indeed, Talmudic - questions such as this are always on the minds of Sean, Patrick, Horace, Rudy, Phoebe and Eugene. Unfortunately, their obsession creates problems for them at elementary school. Instead of listening to their teacher's lectures, Sean and Patrick (Andre Gower and Robby Kiger)

Misplaced your mummy? Left it ( he? she? ) behind on your last vacation? That's the predicament that befell folks at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology when they found that Chinese officials didn't want them to display more than 100 artifacts from China in the museum's much-ballyhooed "Secrets of the Silk Road" exhibition, as well as its centerpiece: two ancient, perfectly preserved mummies. As luck would have it, the museum had on staff an experienced mummy maker ( mummier ?

About 900 B.C., Neb Neteru, a priest in ancient Egypt, was probably running around somewhere near the Temple of Amun in the Nile River city of Thebes. Yesterday, his mummified body, wrapped in about two dozen cloth layers, was laid out on a sterile table in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, while a huge - and expensive - piece of 20th-century technology X-rayed his body from head to toe. The X-ray analysis was part of a Children's Television Workshop segment called "Portrait of a Mummy," and it provided revealing clues about the mummy's life, times and death.

Should a mummy ever be turned into a mom? Last month the 500-year-old body of a girl was put on display in a portable freezer at the National Geographic Society building in Washington. No previous find was as well-preserved. The body is so well-preserved, in fact, that it apparently triggered a bizarre request. Some researchers reportedly were interested in removing and fertilizing the mummy's eggs. The body was found Sept. 8 at the 20,700-foot-high summit of Nevado Ampato in the Peruvian Andes.

'I've seen enough mummies to last a lifetime!" says a fed-up John Hannah, the actor who's provided what passes for comic relief in three Mummy movies now. Let's second that emotion. Rachel Weisz has. After appearing as the archaeologist wife to Brendan Fraser's dashing doofus adventurer in the first two tomb-raiding hits, the Oscar-winning actress has exited the show, to be replaced by Norristown's own Maria Bello - with black hair and a toothy English accent. In The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor , Fraser and Bello's Rick and Evelyn O'Connell quit their stately manor in Oxfordshire (just down the road from Lara Croft's?

Britain's Prince Charles may now be 50, but this weekend he partied with the stamina of a Leonardo DiCaprio or a Puff Daddy half his age. The heir to the throne wrapped up a three-day birthday extravaganza in the wee hours of Sunday morning, after being feted by his parents, politicos, film stars, soccer players and - lastly and most scandalously - his mistress. Camilla Parker Bowles played hostess for her boyfriend's 50th Saturday night at Highgrove, his country estate. How tight was security?

The Tattooed Woman is seated for eternity in a loosely fetal posture, her head tilted to the right. Locks of her long black hair curl about her cheek and past her mouth, below which is a small, tattooed oval with a dot inside - a mystery. We know she is from Chile, where before 1550 A.D. her burial posture was typical. In the desert air, her body naturally dried and mummified. The fabric that once tightly wrapped her has left impressions on her chin and cheeks. As part of the latest blockbuster exhibition to visit the Franklin Institute, the Tattooed Woman is sure to prove as alluring as she was in Los Angeles and Milwaukee.

Misplaced your mummy? Left it ( he? she? ) behind on your last vacation? That's the predicament that befell folks at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology when they found that Chinese officials didn't want them to display more than 100 artifacts from China in the museum's much-ballyhooed "Secrets of the Silk Road" exhibition, as well as its centerpiece: two ancient, perfectly preserved mummies. As luck would have it, the museum had on staff an experienced mummy maker ( mummier ?

The show will go on - Chinese mummies and all. After weeklong talks between Chinese cultural authorities in Beijing and officials at the U.S. Embassy there, more than 100 artifacts from western China, including two unique mummies, will go on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, university officials announced Friday. The artifacts, part of a much-ballyhooed exhibition, "Secrets of the Silk Road," were unexpectedly withheld from exhibition "at the request of Chinese officials" just days before the show was to open last Saturday.

What do you do when the museum show you've been planning for 18 months loses out on the very Chinese artifacts it was supposed to showcase, including two mummies? You build "dummy mummies" - as the curatorial consultant called them - that look as close to the real thing as possible. That's what the enterprising staff at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has done, as the museum continues to negotiate the display of the antiquities with the Chinese government.

Negotiations to obtain necessary releases to allow the display of Chinese antiquities in a major Penn Museum exhibition are under way in Beijing, according to a curator and other sources in Philadelphia. The artifacts, including two mummies, were to form the heart of a blockbuster show that will open with great fanfare Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology - although without its most intriguing objects. "There are very high-level discussions taking place right now," Victor H. Mair said Friday.

Where does the Silk Road run? Not through Philly, apparently. The highly touted exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, featuring mummies and artifacts from China, will open as planned this weekend - only without the Chinese mummies and artifacts. Chinese officials informed the museum that the "Secrets of the Silk Road" exhibition pieces could not be displayed in Philadelphia despite having been shown in California and Texas, said Darien Sutton, a museum public-relations coordinator.

A serial bank robber known as the "Mummy Bandit" pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court, authorities said. Hiram Joseph Adams, 45, of Mount Airy, had disguised his face and hands with gauze bandages and robbed four banks since January 2009 in Philadelphia and Montgomery County. Adams almost got away with a fifth robbery in Chestnut Hill, but the teller fainted when he told her he had a bomb, authorities said. Police arrested Adams on Aug. 4 as he prepared to hit an Alliance Bank branch in Havertown, U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger said.

A man dubbed by the FBI as the "Mummy Bandit" pleaded guilty yesterday in federal district court to robbing four area banks this year and last and attempting to rob a fifth. U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis set sentencing for February for Hiram Joseph Adams, 45. Adams could face up to 78 months in a federal lockup under preliminary advisory guidelines, prosecutors said. Adams had been dubbed the Mummy Bandit because he covered his hands and face with Ace and gauze bandages, prosecutors said.

Hiram Joseph Adams, alleged to be the "mummy bandit," was indicted Thursday on charges that he robbed banks in the Philadelphia area, federal prosecutors said. Adams, 45, of Philadelphia, was charged with four counts of bank robbery and one count of attempted bank robbery. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 100 years in prison and a possible fine of $1.25 million. The "mummy bandit" sometimes wore bandages to disguise himself. He once dressed as a doctor with a surgical mask and a stethoscope draped around his neck.