Brendan Fraser nearly died during a scene where his character is hanged. Rachel Weisz remembered, "He [Fraser] stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated."

In one scene, Beni is shown with a sackful of gold which he is trying to load onto a camel. Beni pulls the camel by the reins, but the camel doesn't budge. The camels all, for some reason, hated Kevin J. O'Connor.

Brendan Fraser was cast due to the success of George of the Jungle (1997). Stephen Sommers also commented that he felt Fraser fit the Errol Flynn swashbuckling character he had envisioned perfectly. The actor understood that his character "doesn't take himself too seriously, otherwise the audience can't go on that journey with him."

With the exception of a loin cloth, a few pieces of jewelry, and pasties, Patricia Velasquez was nude except for body paint, which took four hours to apply.

The library disaster was done in one take. It would have taken an entire day to re-shoot if a mistake had been made.

Continuity

When Evie is on the ladder, she's holding a book that she tries to put on the adjacent bookcase. When she drops the book, there is no sound of the book landing and, when she leans over and the ladder is supporting itself, the book is nowhere to be seen.

Just before the warden is killed, you can see Rick's right wrist without his leather band and his band-less wrist has no tattoo.

When Rick and Jonathan are trying to recover the Book of Amun-Ra from the statue of Horus, holes suddenly appear in the floor of the chamber without explanation. Originally, a deleted scene had several more mummies bursting through the ground and attacking them, before being killed by the salt acid booby-trap in the statue; the sequence was cut but the holes they emerged from can still be seen in some shots.

After O'Connell, Evy, Jonathan and the Warden get out of the water, all of them have wet clothes. But, after the scene where Benny screams, they appear to have dry clothes.

When they all return to Hamunaptra for the final scene, they arrive via airplane and Imhotep's cyclone. Yet, when Bennie takes the gold and the four heroes escape, there is a herd of saddled camels just outside, where did they come from? How did they get there?



Factual errors

Imhotep fears cats because "cats are the guardians of the Underworld". In Egyptian mythology, cats were associated with the goddesses Bastet (fertility, motherhood and protection) and Sekhmet (healing) and not the Underworld.

Both times, when the Arab horsemen are attacking Hamunaptra, the sound of ululation is heard. In the Middle East, this sound is traditionally made by women, and during times of celebration or grieving. It wouldn't be made by attacking men on horseback.

The hieroglyphs on Ardeth Bay's forehead are supposed to spell Imhotep. They are, however, incorrect, and are translated as Imhotper, rather than Imhotep.

When Dr. Allen Chamberlain is reading the mummy's curse in hieroglyphs; he is in fact reading them the wrong way. The way the hieroglyphs were facing, they were meant to be read right-to-left. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs can be read right-to-left, left-to-right, or up-to-down.

When Evelyn and Rick climb down into the vault under the statue, Evelyn uses mirrors to illuminate the chamber. You see the light passing from one mirror to the next. The speed of light is way too fast to be tracked like that.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

The term "salt acid" is used; while no longer in use, this is an old name for hydrochloric acid. The term is also still used for salts of partially neutralized polyprotic acids, as NaHSO4 or NaHCO3.

When the lid is taken off Imhotep's coffin, Evie looks at the carving- Death Is Only The Beginning. The beetles presumably ate away his bandages, freeing his hands.

Beni jumps out of the window and breaks it. When Imhotep breathes out the flies, Rick and Jonathan close the unbroken shutters, not the broken window.

Seti I, Imhotep, and Anck Su Namun, were real people, but the three of them lived centuries Aparted from each other. The fictitious characters in this movie named after the historic characters, share no traits with the real life counterparts.

When Imhotep realizes Beni is speaking "the language of the slaves", he speaks one or two sentences in Hebrew, then switches back to ancient Egyptian, but Beni still understands him. Apparently, Beni does know ancient Egyptian (given his occupation it shouldn't come as a surprise), even though not so well, which becomes apparent when Evelyn starts correcting him. So, there is no reason for Imhotep to continue to speak Hebrew.



Revealing mistakes

When O'Connell jumps off the ship into the Nile, his bag full of weapons floats when it hits the water.

When the American "cowboys" are shooting at the Medji on the boat, they are all wearing earplugs.

When the yellow car pulls up to the hotel, the wheels on the car are not turning.

When Evelyn is on the ladder unsupported by a bookcase, the stunt double is obvious, especially by his shoes.

Soon after the main characters pick up their camels, there is a left to right panning shot of them riding in the desert. At least five dust marks on the camera lens are revealed as pale shadows against the sand.



Anachronisms

The codex-style books (pages, covers, and binding) were not invented until the Roman Empire. Ancient Egyptians used scrolls. Therefore, the Book of the Dead and the Book of Amun-Ra should not look like modern books at all.

After being hanged and prior to boarding the boat, Rick is explaining to Evelyn about his troop believing in the city so much they marched across Libya. The movie is based in 1923 and the country was not referred to as Libya until 1934.

When they seek Winston's help, the Victrola is playing at 33 rpm. Victrolas only play at 78 rpm; long-playing (33 rpm) records did not appear until the 1950s.

The plane Winston is flying is a Stampe et Vertongen SV-4B. These planes went into production in 1930, five years after the film is set.

Dr. Bey says that Hamunaptra was a myth told by the "Arabs" to Greek and Roman tourists. But the Arab conquest of Egypt was after the Greek and Roman periods.



Audio/visual unsynchronized

Every time we see Ardeth Bay at the beginning of the movie, he says the same phrase every time he talks, even though the translation is always different.

After Rick is thrown by Imhotep, he says "no problem" even though his lips are not moving.

When Imohtep is scared by the cat on the piano, you see the cat's paws hit the piano keys. The last pitch played does not match the corresponding key that the cat stepped on.

While on the boat, O'Connell confronts Beni. You hear the sound of a handgun being cocked. Yet, when the .45 is shown, the hammer is still down.



Crew or equipment visible

When Rick, Jonathan, Winston and the Americans are sitting at the bar in Fort Brydon (after the introduction of Winston), you can see 1st Assistant Director Cliff Lanning with his script in hand on the very left side of the screen.

After she finishes rearranging the bookshelves, Evelyn enters a dark chamber of the museum alone. As she turns to grab a torch, a red flash of light is seen on a door to her left. Possibly a laser (such as a cinematic tape measure) or simply a reflected light by the crew. The light flash does not appear to be related to her movement.

In the opening scene where Rick & Beni are crouching behind the wall with their buddies ready to shoot the approaching armed horsemen and the camera is panning along the side of the galloping horsemen. In the background is a quite visible camera stand and two camera operators shooting the scene from another angle.

During the car chase through Cairo, film lights can be seen.

When Rick and Evie are up on deck on the ship, and the deck is empty except for them, and Rick begins checking his guns, a crew member's shadow is visible behind Evie. It appears twice.



Errors in geography

In the opening shot of Thebes, pyramids are visible, but there were no pyramids built around Thebes. You can also see a small version of a Sphinx in front of the pyramids, making the whole set look like Giza, in Cairo.

The team are shown boarding a steamer in 'Giza Port'. The Pyramids are shown on the far side of the Nile. The Port as shown is on the Cairo (eastern) side of the Nile. Giza is on the Pyramids (western) side.

Rick refers to the Tuareg's beliefs about Hamunaptra, but the Tuareg do not live in Egypt.



Character error

Evelyn says in the movie that they take out all your organs during mummification, including your heart. It is believed that the Egyptians left the heart in the body because it was the seat of intelligence and feelings.

When the scarabs are poured over Imhotep, they appear to begin devouring him gradually, a fact which Evelyn later confirms, stating that the beetles devoured a corpse "very slowly." However, whenever the scarabs devour anyone else later on in the film, they do so almost instantaneously.

Early in the film, it is established that Evelyn needs to wear reading glasses. At 1h 9m 28s, she is walking around reading a book without glasses.

After Jonathan was able to steal the key of the Book of Amun-Ra with Evelyn, he opens the book and reads the hieroglyphics upside down.

While Ardeth, Rick and Jonathan are trying to dig through a cave-in, Jonathan's accent suddenly switches from English to Scottish when he says "Come on, put your backs into it!", then it returns to English for the remainder of the movie.