The Mummy! Egypt; the 1821 public unwrappings of Egyptian mummies in a theatre near Piccadilly, which she may have attended as a girl; and, very likely, the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." As Shelley had written of Frankenstein's creation, "A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch," which may have triggered young Miss Webb's later concept. In any case, at many points she deals in greater clarity with elements from the earlier book: the loathing for the much-desired object, the immediate arrest for crime and attempt to lie one's way out
The Dig (novel) (pp34–36) is possibly transposed from other phases of the excavation not described. The second mound explored in 1938 (known as Mound 2), which contained a disturbed burial which had included a ship, is not described but is 'merged' with the famous ship-mound ('Mound 1') excavated in 1939. Hence the real excavation of Mound 2 is suppressed, and the preparations for the real 1939 excavation is omitted. Some glassware found in the former is, in the novel, transposed to the latter (e.g. p 61). Hence the novel cannot portray what was learnt by the experience and findings of the 1938 dig,