Beware the Mummy!

The presence of mummies in This Belongs in a Museum adds yet another strategic layer to this tile-laying game of area control and board manipulation.

Mummies begin the game on the Tomb Tile. The Tomb Tile is the foundation tile for building the game board as you play. The movement and placement of mummies throughout the game provide you with opportunities to thwart the movements and actions of other players. A mummy’s location at the end of the game can gain or lose points for you and the other players, depending on their placement.

Mummies can be moved off the Tomb Tile when an Action Tile is placed in play in lieu of taking the action allowed by the icon on the tile. Mummies can be moved to any unoccupied space on the active game board, except base camps.

Players can move any color mummy, not just their own color.

TIP: Use another player’s color mummy to block movements and your color mummy to steal points.

When moving an archeologist, players cannot move through sections that are occupied by a mummy. This applies to the entire connected section of the same color, and not just the single temple space on which the mummy sits. Mummy influence does not extend past mountains, rivers, or airports. In the image below, an archeologist could NOT move through section A, but could move through section B, even though the two sections are connected via the mountain tile. 

To get to the other side of a mummy-occupied section, archeologists will need to spend movements to go around or use an airport.

TIP: Placing a mummy in the path of an opponent’s archeologist can force them to take multiple turns worth of movements to collect a single artifact or spend an action tile or airport tile prematurely to get around a mummy. 

At the end of the game, any section occupied by a mummy claims the points for that section for the archeologist of the same color as the mummy. In the image below, the entire connected green section that would equate 6 points would be taken away from the green archeologist and given to the blue archeologist because the blue mummy is inside that section. Note: you get the points for the entire section, not just the single temple space. Mummy influence for stealing points is limited by rivers and mountains. 

TIP: Holding on to an action tile until the last turn can give you the opportunity to remove a mummy from one of your scoring sections and move it into another player’s section. Or, you may choose to move your color mummy into another player’s highest scoring section to steal their points for yourself.

Did these tips help you develop some new strategies? We hope you are eager to get back to the table and try new combinations. This Belongs in a Museum is available now at a Friendly Local Game Store near you and online through our web store!