The Zombie Group! discussion

Do mummies count as zombies?

On one hand, they're dead, they're probably rotting and they came back (as of a few years ago, when mummies were BIG) from the dead.

On the other hand, they don't eat brains.

Well they have been preserved zombies are hated they are old kings zombies are normal ppl they don't eat brains they don't infect and no one wants ta kill em (EXEP ME))

Btw can I make an RP part a this group plz

I would have to say "no". Why? Well, the typical zombie is "made" by being infected. Mummies are "made" by a ritualized embalming process for burial. Mummies are then usually brought back to life by a spell that can be broken.

classic zombies can also be under a black magic or voodoo spell to direct them, though that usually didn't work out too well...They can also be summoned back to "life" by the same means. I still say that mummies and zombies are different though, mostly due to infection/reproduction methods and behavior. Mummies typically want revenge for the desecration of their graves, etc.

Classic zombie didn't eat brains. Well, I suppose they would eat brains, but not brains exclusively. (That's from Return of the Living Dead, I believe). Infection has become a common explanation (I believe from The Omega Man), but I don't think it's required. A Golum is mystical in nature, and I think you could call that a type of zombie.

I've always wondered what happens to the flesh consumed by zombies. Afterall, they're dead and rotting. I doubt much digestion takes place. Probably just speeds up the rotting.

No, mummies are a way to bury the dead. Zombies are infected with a desire to spread the zombie infection.

Do you call vampires zombies because they are dead and walking?
No.

Kama wrote: "I've always wondered what happens to the flesh consumed by zombies. Afterall, they're dead and rotting. I doubt much digestion takes place. Probably just speeds up the rotting."

I like Max Brooks' explanation (if I remember correctly): The zombies keep eating until their guts explode, and then they keep on eating until they completely rot away.

My opinion, no they're not. They are undead like vampires but don't brains or anything really.

My take is that they bite uninfected people - which infects them with the zombie juice - but don't eat them. That's classic zombies: Traditional zombies were created by voodoo.

No, a zombie is made with rum, while a mummy is made with vodka. Seriously though (cough), interesting question. I suppose it comes down to whether you define a zombie simply as an animated corpse, or also include mode of infection as some people above have. Since I consider George Romero the godfather of pop culture zombies, I would include infection and exclude mummies from the definition.

Except Romero re-invented the zombie story. In the 1920s and 1930s zombies were created with voodoo and hypnosis. The films were seen as racist and colonialist and discredited until Romero invented the disease model.

Oh, yeah, no argument there. That's why I said godfather of pop culture zombies. Maybe I should have said 'modern' pop culture zombies. The whole flesh eating / infection model is pretty removed from 'traditional' Haitian zombies and earlier zombie films, which frequently depicted them as servants of evil voodoo practitioners, usually created with the use of some kind of drug and/or hypnosis, as you said.

Do you call vampires zombies because they are dead and walking?

Well, they are the undead, but they aren't rotting. Zombies are animated, rotting corpses. Vampires are dead but don't rot. (Unless they get hit with a rotting spell a la Pam on True Blood.) Also vampires are thinking creatures - they would never turn all of their food supply in to vampires like those stupid zombies do in zombie apocalypse stories.

Zombies are a very different creature from mummies (assuming you're only considering the traditional Egyptian mummified corpse). Whereas a zombie is created via the transmission of a "zombie" virus or contagion into a living, human host, a mummy is most commonly revived by a supernatural agent, such as a curse or an ancient ritual.

I'm not convinced zombies eat noninfected humans. Please point me to the film/book that features flesh-eating (versus flesh-biting) zombies.

so we've ruled out mummies - but what about revenants? are they zombies?

Beverly wrote: "I'm not convinced zombies eat noninfected humans. Please point me to the film/book that features flesh-eating (versus flesh-biting) zombies."

Night of the Living Dead, and every movie and book after that when Romero recreated zombies as mindless, flesh eating, violent living or unliving dead.

I know about the Romero films. I just never saw them eating humans. I saw them bite humans, which is how they infect them, but not eating humans.

Zombies, being dead, shouldn't need to eat. Was I simply not paying attention during Night of the Living Dead or are you counting biting as eating? Please confirm that the zombies consumed the flesh and didn't bite.

No, in Night of the Living dead you see the zombies ripping off pieces and EATING flesh.

Actually the first Night of the Living Dead has the zombies being created by a radioactive space probe that crashed in the area and had nothing to do with virus. The virus idea happened afterward since it's our modern day unknown

I do think some people seem to "disappear" in the newer zombie, like Resident Evil, movies implying they were consumed but most people do just get bitten and then turned!

Thanks for clarifying that. I guess I need to stop watching the films between my fingers. ;-)

ok wait i have a question ... i keep reading zombies and mummies aren't the same because zombies are infected and mummies aren't (are they magic or something? like are they all about a curse or something?) ... I guess my question is just where does the FIRST zombie come from? There has to be a first. I don't think ALL zombies come from an infection ...
okay, i'm not a total zombie expert, obviously (this is why I'm asking lol) but it seems like in very old zombie stories there is no infection, but it can be a spell or something, which seems the same-ish as a mummy.
I also am not so sure that a mummy and a zombie are the same thing ... they seem like different things to me. I just don't know why and I'm not sure that the reasons people are giving here are really all there is to it, even if they are good reasons most of the time.
sorry if this is difficult to understand. i think this conversation is very fascinating :)

Marilyn,
You are right not all zombies are from infection. Some are infected, some are from cosmic radiation, some are parasites, some are voodoo. There are real life examples of zombies in Haiti (voodoo) and Asia (malaria based illness) of course these real world examples do not eat human flesh...that was the imagination of Romero.

In my novel it starts with Japanese irradiated dogs biting humans and mutated genes. Yes, per the standard fan based fiction, they do eat flesh, but not only human although humans are preferred. For my zombies, it's the warmth of the flesh and the brain based chemicals they seek. But that's just my novel and a work of fiction.

I think the confusion comes in with mummies because they come back to life due curses or the hereafter, true, but the creation of mummies was a religious act on the part of the Pharaohs,Chinese and other cultures. Mummies would not be the walking dead as much as arise from a long sleep to their former glory. (Not in this realm but the next among the gods)

In both instances, Hollywood made them scary. It goes back to what you don't know is terrifying.

I think the big difference for me is that a mummy is much more goal oriented to destroy whoever desecrated his grave. They usually don't try to take over and are more concerned with killing those responsible not necessarily eating them. I believe most of the stories even have the mummies returning to their resting place after getting revenge. Very different from every zombie movie I've ever seen!

I take a broad definition of zombie: to me they are people who have died and been re-animated by whatever means.

If you go back to the original zombies (made through vodou), those zombies were supposedly controlled by their makers through magic - much like many mummies. I don't think we can say that zombies have a common intent - such as craving brains, or wanting to kill.

It's important to note too, that George Romero never referred to his creatures in Night of the Living Dead as "zombies". A lot of people say that the Romero zombie mythos is the true zombie form, but Romero himself never saw it that way.

Something common to all zombies is the lack of higher brain function (unlike vampires who keep theirs intact). This is also true of mummies.

Zombies decay, but they can stay together longer if embalmed - also like mummies, but unlike vampires.

So I would say that mummies are a specific form of zombie, but vampires are not. This is just my interpretation of the mythos though - there's no real answer, only what we choose to call things!

Beverly wrote: "Zombies, being dead, shouldn't need to eat. Was I..."

Zombies, being dead, should also not need to walk around the place, but they do. That's the beauty of mythical creatures - they can do whatever we want them to.

Beverly wrote: "I'm not convinced zombies eat noninfected humans. Please point me to the film/book that features flesh-eating (versus flesh-biting) zombies."

Sunday nights on AMC. The Walking Dead. (And the comic series it is derived from).

Thanks Kama.

@Kama: Not to be a disagreeable Pete but aside from some really old cheesy pulp stuff I've read/seen I've always seen mummy's as having fully "higher brain function."
Also to disagree I don't think it really matters what Romero called/didn't call them, or even what his intent was. It's the viewers interpretation that matters. Culturally "Night of the Living Dead" is the demarcation line where the modern interpretation of the zombie mythos begins.

"Culturally "Night of the Living Dead" is the demarcation line where the modern interpretation of the zombie mythos begins."

Good shout, Holden - totally agree.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?...

Viewed from a historical perspective, perhaps we should call zombie a subgroup of mummy.

I don't see how the information in that graph leads to that conclusion at all. Zombies are a clearly different type of "monster" the only thing they have in common with mummies is they are both undead; there are scores of other kinds of undead creatures. All that graph seems to show is that zombies are a more recent creation, and perhaps that as their popularity has risen mummies has fallen, but I wouldn't say that because correlation does not mean causation.

I would have say no as well. Mummies are an entirely different sort of thing.

Obviously this is a totally arbitrary decision based on personal taste. I think of mummies as a sub-group of zombies, but others disagree. I did expect to be one of the minority in that though!

I was surprised (but pleased) to find mummies included as "zombie cousins" in The Dead Walk.

I agree that NoTLD is the demarcation line from which modern zombies began, but I don't think that implies that it needs to end there. Like everything, zombies have evolved and branched out. I guess it's a matter of whether people enjoy the diversity, or are more zombie purists.

Thank you for providing a link to the Ngram, Michelle. While I think it makes for interesting viewing, I agree that it doesn't really demonstrate that zombies are a subgroup of mummies. It only indicates that mummies in literature have been around a lot longer than literary zombies - but that's no surprise. Mummies have been part of our (contemporary) popular imagination since they were discovered in Egyptian tombs, while zombies exist entirely in our imagination - a sort of 20th Century fear.

I did play around a bit with the Ngram: I eliminated the generic term 'undead' and added 'vampire,' then expanded the dates from 1700 to 2008 (last data point). The results were enlightening - if you care about popularity in literature.

This thread is really good at being a energy sucking vampire. I have this really long rant.. But I don't have the energy to post it. So I will write this quickly before leaving the thread forever:

Zombies need a brain to function. Because zombies are a biological creature. Mummies don't have brains. The brain is removed during the process of making the mummie.

Tomb,

You are right. Mummies brains are removed along with a few other vital organs. If I remember correctly the dead's brains are removed through their noses during mummification.

Zombies on the other hand have most of there body organs in tact, but brain function is the cerebral cortex...or basic survival feeding, breathing etc.

no mummies are not zombies. if you read Everything you want to know about zombies by matt mogk he explains it all. Elements of the modern zombie are (1) It's a reanimated human corpse (2) it's relentlessly aggressive, and (3) its biologically infected and infectious.

They are in the David Wellington monster series check them out there mental!

Aaron wrote: "no mummies are not zombies. if you read Everything you want to know about zombies by matt mogk he explains it all. Elements of the modern zombie are (1) It's a reanimated human corpse (2) it's rele..."

OMG. Thank you Aaron. I've been avoiding this thread because of the obvious and I keep coming back to that book. I'm also a zombie purist though.

IMO mummies are a sub-set of zombie, just as the undead (i.e.) living Infected of 28 Days Later are.

After all, in the traditional zombie films the dead arose from the graveyards. Most of those would have gone through the embalming process and have had their brains removed also. Doesn't make them less of a zombie.

After all, in the traditional zombie films the dead arose from the graveyards. Most of those wo..."

Citations please! Aside from the first Return of the living Dead, what other classic zombie movies have the undead arising from graveyards? This feels like one of those tropes that was never really in many movies, but was repeated in secondary culture making fun/imitating zombie genre like cartoons and such.

As far as the brain being removed during the embalming process citation once again. And even IF this is something that happens in the real world I don't see how it applies to most zombie movie because until recently what they have shown is pretty far removed from reality.

Dude... of course mummies count as zombies. They just don't eat brains. Or do they? (look up dr.evil on google)

I wonder if there are any good mummy books out there? I'm not a huge fan of mummies because they are magical but I do love most things Egyptian.

No, I don't think Mummies and Zombies are the same. Mmmies typically strangle their victims. Zombies... well, er... take a little taste you could say.

Mark wrote: "Zombies are either organic, toxic/radioactive, or supernatural, and mummies would fall under the supernatural category. So yes, Louise, mummies count as zombies! :-)..."

Hmmm, seems like a pretty broad definition. Going by this vampires would also be considered zombies, wouldn't they?

Mark wrote: "Vampires, zombies and mummies all fall under the umbrella grouping of 'undead' -- but I'd say that zombies and mummies are in the same group because they are corpses that have been brought back to ..."

So I take you are among those who would exclude infected living (ala 28 Days Later) from the definition of zombie?

@Mark: Dude, I think you are working on a false assumption, i.e. that zombies come from folklore of some sort. Zombies, the monster that this group is based on, is a totally modern creation dating only as far back George R.'s "Night of the living Dead" and is in fact a creation OF modern movies. The monsters seen in that movie spawned an all new kind of monster not really seen before in movies or literature, although if based on anything it would be the mid-eastern Ghoul. This modern creature is defined by three things: Modern zombies are relentlessly aggressive, reanimated human corpses and driven by biological infection.

So what and where is all this zombie mythology you keep referring to? If you are talking about the Haitian zombies you will find that those legends refer to a totally separate monster mythology. The reason we call the modern monsters we know as "zombies" by that name is not because of any tie to the Haitian monster/legends but rather because of the name of a popular 1979 Italian movie (of the name "Zombie").

No to be be nit picky but a sentence like this ("FYI, the concept of zombies being created by diseases is purely from movies -- not from any country's mythology or folklore.") STRONGLY implies that you believe some aspects of the zombie mythos come from traditional folk flore, if not the sentence is a total non-sequitur.

Again, the sentence, "But in talking about these matters, I try to bring in older mythology/folklore, since movies are a new thing, compared to legends that go back centuries," again suggests implies that you are supporting your beliefs for what is and isn't a zombie by 'going back centuries'. I understand that in an eairlier post you talked about werewolfs, but you seemed to be only talking about zombies in that post and to put the phrase, "But in talking about these matters, I try to bring in older mythology/folklore" again implies you are bringing folklore into the issue of the modern zombie.

Also, "Zombies eating brains is from no country's lore," once again seems to imply that you thought modern zombies have something to do with folklore. There is no zombie lore that predates movies, why bother bringing up lore unless you thought there was some?

And, since you were so kind as to tell me to re-read your posts I'll do the same. I was 100 NOT agreeing with you. The main point of my post was to disagree with the point you began with, which was I quote, "So yes, Louise, mummies count as zombies! :-)". Mummies are most certainly NOT zombies. They are two very distinct fictional creatures. They are both viewed as undead, but that is only one small part of it. As you later went on to point out many many other fictional creatures are also undead.

Holden: You're turning argumentative and disrespectful -- putting words in my mouth, insisting on what you *think* I mean, just to make your point -- so I shall completely withdraw myself and my input in the conversation from this forum. You can have it to yourself.