The whispering mummy
 (orig. Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Secret of the Whispering Mummy ) |
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| Radio play from Germany | |
| publication | 1980 |
| genre | Youth series / crime thriller |
| Duration | 49 min |
| Publisher / label | Europe |
| Contributors | |
| author | Robert Arthur |
| Machining | HG Francis |
| Director | Heikedine Körting |
| music | Carsten Bohn , Manfred Rürup (originally) |
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The three ??? and the whispering mummy is in the American original, after the haunted castle and the super parrot, the third installment in the book series The Three ??? by Robert Arthur from 1965. In Germany it is the second installment in the book series (1969) and the tenth installment in the radio play series (1980).
action
Alfred Hitchcock (in more recent editions Albert Hitfield) gives the three detectives a new case involving Yarborough, an old friend of Egyptology professor emeritus . He was involved in excavations in Egypt over two decades ago and came across the 3,000-year-old mummy of a pharaoh named Ra-Orkon, whose origin is a mystery. Yarborough suspects that it is a ruler originally from Libya. Why the mummy was apart from the other graves and why no large grave goods were found was also unknown at the time. After the mummy was exhibited in a museum in Cairo for a long time , it was recently brought to Yarborough's Hollywood home, where the scientist wants to examine it more closely. On several occasions, however, the mummy whispered words in a foreign language. In addition, objects moved for no apparent reason. Wilkins, the professor's butler, believes it is the Ra-Orcon's curse, as some members of the expedition at the time died an unusual death. Yarborough himself considers this to be a pipe dream, which arose from a wrong translation of the epitaph.
Jupiter, Peter and Bob take care of the strange occurrences. However, the mummy only whispers when the professor is with her; in the presence of other people, she always remains silent. However, Jupiter succeeds by means of a deception by disguising himself as the professor, to whisper the mummy in his presence and to record the spoken words with the help of a tape. Dr. Freemann, a friend of Yarborough's, can identify this as an ancient form of Arabic. It is a warning: Ra-Orkons is far away, his peace has been disturbed and those responsible will not find peace until the ruler is brought back to his homeland. However, the boys cannot pinpoint the cause of the whisper; all theories about it turn out to be false.
An Arabic-speaking boy named Hamid, the son of a rich carpet dealer in Libya, appears, whom Peter catches in the professor's garden. He reports that a magician told his father in a vision that Ra-Orkon was the ancestor of his family and that he should therefore bring the mummy back to Libya. From then on, Hamid and the three detectives proceed together and discover that their current case is related to a second, less spectacular case: A woman in Santa Monica is missing her beloved Abyssinian cat named Sphinx. When a very similar cat appears in Professor Yarboroug's garden, it turns out to be the missing animal: The cat was specifically "masked" in order to correspond to the prophecy of the said magician, because of which the Libyan boy Hamid came to America: The spirit Ra -Orcons would appear in the form of his favorite cat buried with him. However, since the color of the paws did not match the tradition, they were painted to match him.
During the investigation, the mummy is stolen, suspected are Yarborough's butler Wilkins and Hamid's guardian Achmed. Peter and Hamid are surprised at how strangers steal the sarcophagus from the professor's house after the robbery of the mummy and hide themselves in it. You will be taken to a warehouse where the looted property is hidden and you will be able to escape from it. However, they do not manage to find the place again the next day. Peter marked it with a blue question mark, but Skinny Norris and his friends got wind of it via the telephone avalanche and had fun decorating the whole area with blue question marks. While searching for the warehouse, Jupiter discovers a truck that is carrying the coffin away, and so as not to lose sight of it, he decides to hide in the sarcophagus. In this way he is brought to the client, whom he can finally take by surprise and hold onto the inside of the sarcophagus himself.
resolution
The person responsible is the professor of ancient oriental studies, Freeman, whose father was Yarborough's assistant 25 years earlier and who discovered gemstones in a small cavity in the sarcophagus of Ra-Orkon. He took only a few and hid the rest in the sarcophagus, sealing the place so that no one but himself would discover the find. Shortly afterwards, however, Freeman was murdered in Cairo - presumably while trying to sell the gemstones he had taken with him. However, he left clues as to where the gemstones could be found for his son, who was still studying at the time. In order to get to the gemstones, Freeman pursues a double strategy: On the one hand, he whispers the mummy at Yarborough using a directional megaphone in the hope that Yarborough would then give him the sarcophagus for investigation. When this fails, he has the sarcophagus stolen; He has already appeared before the Hamid family, disguised as a magician, in order to incite them to attempt theft and thus to draw suspicion on them.
Illustrations
Harry Kane's illustrations in the American edition show:
- Justus at the headquarters' periscope
- Overturning the Anubis statue
- The gardener seizes Hamids (Achmed)
- Wilkins' encounter with Anubis
- Discovery of the hangover by Bob
- Boys and cats with white paws in the headquarters
- Freeman's fall into the sarcophagus
radio play
The radio play shows cuts compared to the original book; for example, the “telephone avalanche” and Skinny Norris are missing .
On the other hand, it also contains original additions such as Peter's words in the following dialogue:
- Hamid: “Ra-Orkon was a great prince. He was killed because he tried to be just and good. "- Peter:" That often seems to be the case. "
In the radio play, Bob climbs into the sarcophagus with Justus, which the book does not allow, since Bob wears a plaster bandage on his leg for the last time, as in the first two episodes.
Egyptological references
The episode shows numerous Egyptological references.
narrative
Ra-Orkon
According to the story, Ra-Orkon was an Egyptian prince of Libyan origin. In fact, in the Third Intermediate Period from the 10th century BC BC in Egypt pharaohs from Libya, some of them with the name Osorkon . The first part of the name Ra refers to the Egyptian sun god .
reincarnation
Hamid says the cat embodies the spirit of Ra-Orkon. According to ancient Egyptian belief, the free souls Ba and Ka could take the form of an animal as an alter ego .
Lord Carter
Yarborough mentions his colleague Lord Carter, who was killed in a car accident. This refers to the Egyptologist Howard Carter and his financier Lord Carnarvon , who actually had a car accident in Germany in 1901 (although he did not die).
Ra-Orkon's language
In the story it is, Ra Orkon would on Classical Arabic whisper. This is historically wrong, it should rather be New Egyptian . Arabic was not widespread in ancient Egypt , but only gained acceptance in the Middle Ages as a result of Islamic expansion . Even after the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs in the 7th century, Coptic , derived from Egyptian, remained the predominant language in everyday life for several centuries. Although it is said that Ra-Orkon does not originally come from Egypt, but belongs to Libyans who then conquered Egypt and took over rule, this does not change anything, since the peoples of ancient Libya did not speak Arabic either.
radio play
It must be said in advance that the pronunciation of Egyptian has only been largely clarified.
The whisper
Ra-Orkon's whisper at 19:40 is reproduced in a radio play transcript as follows:
- "Ra-Orkon ... wau ... yes ißef en tronute ... kotte franne ... meck na ento e iret ... botte reff ... junse dä u ... njekine ßä hotpe e hotte Pre-Orkon hochoff ... etem Ra-Orkon ho .. woa ihßeff en chonute spen zetem. "
German:
- “Ra-Orkon is far from home. You have disturbed your peace. Woe to all those whose fault this is. They should not find peace again until Ra-Orkon himself finds peace again. They should follow him to death if Ra-Orkon is not returned to his homeland. "
The whisper does not seem to be fictitious, but rather a serious attempt at translation into Egyptian. Attempt to reconstruct the beginning:
| rꜥ -wrkn | wꜣj | st | n | ẖnw | ... | ḥtp | ẖnn | ... | |
| Ra-Orkon | remote | place | of the | homeland | ... | peace | to disturb | ... |
Hamid's exclamation
Hamid supposedly speaks Arabic. His exclamation at 10:20 minutes is reproduced in the above-mentioned radio play transcript as follows:
- "En notschi ra nyo tschepsi en Rorkon!"
Meaning:
- "I call upon the spirit of the noble Ra-Orkon [for help]."
Hamid's exclamation does not seem to be Arabic, but rather Egyptian. "Tschepsi", for example, could be šps ( noble ) as in the name Hatshepsut .
Cover
The cover by Aiga Rasch , used from the 8th edition in 1979, shows a sarcophagus with hieroglyphics on the edge.
- The beginning can be deciphered as
ptwꜣlmjs, which means Ptolemy .
- The characters in the name cartridge can be read as
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- rꜣlwb.
Trivia
- Robert Arthur's second wife, Joan Vaczek, lived in Egypt from 1935 to 1940. The two met in the early 1940s and were married from 1946 to 1959. Joan was interested in Egypt, which is reflected in her books; she probably shared this interest with Robert Arthur.
- The work "Jerry Todd and the Whispering Mummy" from 1923 is by Edward Edson Lee .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The radio play researchers: The three ??? (10) and the whispering mummy - music
- ↑ The radio play researchers: The three ??? (10) and the whispering mummy - word
- ↑ 3investigators.homestead.com
- ↑ a b rocky-beach.com: Script # 10
- ↑ The radio play researchers speak of "ancient Egyptian".
- ↑ rocky-beach.com: Cover # 3 ; higher resolution: diedreifragezeichen.wikia.com
- ↑ threeinvestigators.net
- ↑ elizabetharthur.org
