I believe that mummies and zombies have a few differences:
* mummies are usually preserved corpses who may come to life years or centuries later, woken by a curse (or magic, or whatever)
* zombies are usually fresh corpses and not preserved at all, and come to life soon after death (due to the rotting issue)
* The _cause_ of revivication isn't as important as the state of the corpse. Simply put, mummies are preserved or pickled soon after death. That's why they are all wrapped up and stuff. Zombies are rotting corpses. You could pickle the zombie after it reanimated but that's kind of like closing the barn door after the cow's escaped.
Or something.
* After all, like you point out, you could totally raise zombies with magic or with technology. And I am sure it is just a matter of time before someone figures how to animate mummies with science - all this time we have been relying on magic but I'm sure there are people doing research on this. So that is not a reliable method of distinguishing the two.
* Think of it this way: a mummy is like fish jerky, but a zombie is like that icelandic dish that you make by burying fish for 3 days and letting it rot in the ground.
* Also, mummies tend to not _have_ any organs, (reducing the whole rotting phenomenon). Their brains and hearts and stuff tend to be in a jar.
* Which makes one wonder if zombies would love to find mummy brains and would consider that an especially tasty delicacy, like pickled brains or brain jerky or something.
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Date: 2010-01-28 01:23 am (UTC)* mummies are usually preserved corpses who may come to life years or centuries later, woken by a curse (or magic, or whatever)
* zombies are usually fresh corpses and not preserved at all, and come to life soon after death (due to the rotting issue)
* The _cause_ of revivication isn't as important as the state of the corpse. Simply put, mummies are preserved or pickled soon after death. That's why they are all wrapped up and stuff. Zombies are rotting corpses. You could pickle the zombie after it reanimated but that's kind of like closing the barn door after the cow's escaped.
Or something.
* After all, like you point out, you could totally raise zombies with magic or with technology. And I am sure it is just a matter of time before someone figures how to animate mummies with science - all this time we have been relying on magic but I'm sure there are people doing research on this. So that is not a reliable method of distinguishing the two.
* Think of it this way: a mummy is like fish jerky, but a zombie is like that icelandic dish that you make by burying fish for 3 days and letting it rot in the ground.
* Also, mummies tend to not _have_ any organs, (reducing the whole rotting phenomenon). Their brains and hearts and stuff tend to be in a jar.
* Which makes one wonder if zombies would love to find mummy brains and would consider that an especially tasty delicacy, like pickled brains or brain jerky or something.
PS, here via melebeth, as promised. ;-)