It takes more than a shovel to the head to stop mummies. Well, that actually depends on the type of mummy. Find their weaknesses and how to protect yourself after the jump.

Mummy Weaknesses

Realistically, there’s 2 classes of mummies that you can take out, ramblers and soldiers.

Fire and decapitation work best. You can also hack off their arms and legs to stop them for a bit. Their limbs will gradually move back to the torso. Ramblers will also crumble to dust if you remove their wrappings. That’s a Scooby Doo tactic right there!

Another way to take out soldiers and ramblers is to break the sorcery that re-animated them. That’s no easy task: You usually have to take out the priest mummy and that’s one tough SOB to fight.

I say stick to the fire and decapitation.

How to Fight a Priest or Pharaoh Mummy

It gets a bit more difficult to take out a priest or pharaoh. In most cases, you need entombment, black magic or an army to take one out. You can also give it what it wants, which usually means someone dies. Let’s take a look at these tactics.

Entombment

Putting the priest or pharaoh back in its tomb works well. They can’t just escape once sealed back in a pyramid or mausoleum. However, that doesn’t really stop them. They still bang on the stones trying to escape. It also means anyone, who figures out how to open it, can let them out.

It’s better to put them back in their sarcophagus. Once inside and the cover closed, they go into hibernation mode. At that point, cast a spell or perform a ritual to send them back to Duat, the afterlife. Problem solved.

But let’s be real: It’s a pain in the ass to put a super-powered mummy back in its box. You usually have to hurt it so badly, it can’t regenerate quickly and needs to flee.

You probably need someone to be bait and lure it back. That’s pretty bleak for the bait.

Black Magic

This one works consistently but it’s not very practical. If you can find someone that can read hieroglyphics and knows Ancient Egyptian death rituals, you can use magic to put the mummy back in its tomb or strip its soul from its re-animated body.

There’s only a handful of people who can do this. Usually, it’s an Egyptologist living in London or Cairo. Although, there’s still some Egyptian death cults roaming around the Sahara Desert you could try.

To do this, the specialist has to find the mummy’s tomb and do the ritual. This will trigger the mummy’s warding and soldier mummies or ramblers will appear.

Make sure you have a squadron of GI Joes ready to take them out, so someone can finish the ritual and cast the spells.

Military Attack

Speaking of GI Joes, you could also mobilize the Armed Forces to attack the priest or pharaoh. Modern weapons can do enough damage to weaken the mummy and get it to flee. As long as you don’t provide fuel (aka, people to feed it souls), its body will start to decompose. This just weakens it. But if you can get it to look like a soldier mummy, you’ve got a chance to lop off its head and neutralize it. Then you can take it to its sarcophagus, dump the body, and seal the tomb.

Give It What It Wants

As mentioned in this post about the different kinds of mummies, you can also give it what it wants. Pharaohs and priests don’t return for the fun of it: They have a reason. It usually involves a lovely young lady (or dude), who reminds the mummy of a lost love.

Now, this also means said lovely young person will end up dead and their souls taken away to Duat, but it will stop the mummy.

My advice: Use them as bait to lure the mummy back to its tomb.

Research:

Overall, I took the lore straight from the movies, but I did use a few books for this article. They’re listed right below.

Cardin, Matt (2015), “Mummies Around The World: An Encyclopedia of Mummies in History, Religion, and Popular Culture,” ABC-CLIO, LLC.

Silverman, David P. (2003), “Ancient Egypt,” Oxford University Press.

Putman, James (2009), “Mummy: Discover the Secrets of Mummies…,” DK Eyewitness Books.

Davis, Graeme and James Estes (1998), “World of Darkness: Mummy Second Edition,” White Wolf Publishing.

Landis, John (2011), “Monsters in the Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares,” Darling Kindersley Limited & Penguin Random House.