The cinematic zombie derives partly from the Egyptian mummy figure.

Evidence

Unlike the vampire, there is no Gothic inspiration for the zombie, although Shelley’s monster features zombification in the sense that he is resurrected from the dead. However, when we look at the text that started the zombie craze, there is an interesting link. William Seabrook wrote The Magic Island in 1929, describing how “voodoo priests, commanding the knowledge of African mysticism and ritual, were able to kill their enemies and bring them back from the dead as mindless servants.” As Colin Dayan has pointed out, Magic Island exoticized the Haitians, and the book functioned “for the delectation of readers in the United States who sought justification for the occupation of Haiti.” Seabrook traveled extensively in Arabia before heading to Haiti. Furthermore, he wrote a book titled Adventures in Arabia: Among the Bedouins, Druses, Whirling Dervishes and Yezidee Devil Worshipers (1927). This is not the only evidence to suggest that the zombie is inspired in part by the Egyptian mummy. In observing the bodily movements of these monsters in cinema, there is a striking similarity: “[The zombie’s] actions are like those of the black mummy, but he doesn’t have behind him the thrill of Egyptian romance, nor is he obsessed by the urge to kill or the love of a departed one. He merely does what he is told.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 711

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s thesis: the zombie—a mass, mindless, do-as-told body—descends from the Oriental mummy, showing how the Muslim monster lineage feeds later monster archetypes. Also connects to the ‘Arab stooge’ mass at loc 710.
• QUESTION: The claim that zombies derive from mummies via Seabrook’s Arabia travels is suggestive but thin evidence — worth checking if other scholars directly argue this lineage or if Arjana is stitching together a circumstantial case.