another curse???
A statue of a Pharoah looks silently on as archaeologists disturb
sacred ruins.
Death Shall Come on Swift Wings To Him Who Disturbs the Peace of
the King... -Supposedly engraved on the exterior of King
Tutankhamen's Tomb
The king was only nineteen when he died, perhaps murdered by his
enemies. His tomb, in comparison with his contemporaries, was
modest. After his death, his successors made an attempt to expunge
his memory by removing his name from all the official records. Even
those carved in stone. As it turns out, his enemy's efforts only
ensured his eventual fame. His name was Tutankhamen: King
Tut.
The ancient Egyptians revered their Pharaohs as Gods. Upon their
deaths the King's bodies were carefully preserved by embalming. The
mummified corpses were interned in elaborate tombs (like the Great
Pyramid) and surrounded with all the riches the royals would need
in the next life. The tombs were then carefully sealed. Egypt's
best architects designed the structures to resist thieves. In some
cases heavy, hard-granite plugs were used to block passageways. In
others, false doorways and hidden rooms were designed to fool
intruders. Finally, in a few cases, a curse was placed on the
entrance.
Most of these precautions failed. In ancient times grave robbers
found their way into the tombs. They unsealed the doors, chiseled
their way around the plugs and found the secrets of the hidden
rooms. They stripped the dead Kings of their valuables. We will
never know if any of the thieves suffered the wrath of a
curse.
Archaeologists from Europe became very interested in Egypt in the
19th century. They uncovered the old tombs and explored their deep
recesses always hoping to find that one forgotten crypt that had
not been plundered in antiquity. They knew that the Pharaohs had
been buried with untold treasures that would be of immense
artistic, scientific, and monetary value. Always the archaeologists
were disappointed.
The Search for the Missing King
In 1891 a young Englishman named Howard Carter arrived in Egypt.
Over the years he became convinced that there was at least one
undiscovered tomb. That of the almost unknown King Tutankhamen.
Carter found a backer for his tomb search in the wealthy Lord
Carnarvon. For five years Carter dug looking for the missing
Pharaoh and found nothing.
Carnarvon summonded Carter to England in1922 to tell him he was was
calling off the search. Carter managed to talk the lord into
supporting him for one more season of digging. Returning to Egypt
the archaeologist brought with him a yellow canary.
A golden bird!" Carter's foreman, Reis Ahmed, exclaimed. "It will
lead us to the tomb!"
Perhaps it did. On November 4th, 1922 Carter's workmen discovered a
step cut into the rock that had been hidden by debris left over
from the building of the tomb of Ramesses IV.. Digging further they
found fifteen more leading to an ancient doorway that appeared to
be still sealed. On the doorway was the name Tutankhamen.
When Carter arrived home that night his servant met him at the
door. In his hand he clutched a few yellow feathers. His eyes large
with fear, he reported that the canary had been killed by a cobra.
Carter, a practical man, told the servant to make sure the snake
was out of the house. The man grabbed Carter by the sleeve.
"The pharaoh's serpent ate the bird because it led us to the hidden
tomb! You must not disturb the tomb!"
Scoffing at such superstitious nonsense, Carter sent the man
home.
Carter immediately sent a telegram to Carnarvon in England and
waited anxiously for his arrival. Carnarvon made it to Egypt by
November 26th and watched as Carter made a hole in the door. Carter
leaned in, holding a candle, to take a look. Behind him Lord
Carnarvon asked, "Can you see anything?"
Carter answered, "Yes, wonderful things."
The day the tomb was opened was one of joy and celebration for all
those involved. Nobody seemed to be concerned about any curse.
Rumors later circulated that Carter had found a tablet with the
curse inscribed on it, but hid it immediately so it would not alarm
his workers. Carter denied doing so.
The tomb was intact and contained an amazing collection of
treasures including a stone sarcophagus. The sarcophagus contained
three gold coffins nested within each other. Inside the final one
was the mummy of the boy-king, Pharaoh Tutankhamen.
The Curse Strikes?
A few months after the tomb's opening tragedy struck. Lord
Carnarvon, 57, was taken ill and rushed to Cairo. He died a few
days later. The exact cause of death was not known, but it seemed
to be from an infection started by an insect bite. Legend has it
that when he died there was a short power failure and all the
lights throughout Cairo went out. His son reported that back on his
estate in England his favorite dog howled and suddenly dropped
dead.
Even more strange, when the mummy of Tutankhamun was unwrapped in
1925, it was found to have a wound on the left cheek in the same
exact position as the insect bite on Carnarvon that lead to his
death.
By 1929 eleven people connected with the discovery of the Tomb had
died early and of unnatural causes. This included two of
Carnarvon's relatives, Carter's personal secretary, Richard
Bethell, and Bethell's father, Lord Westbury. Westbury killed
himself by jumping from a building. He left a note that read, "I
really cannot stand any more horrors and hardly see what good I am
going to do here, so I am making my exit."
Outside the tomb of King Tut shortly after it was opened in
1922.
What horrors did Westbury refer to?
The press followed the deaths carefully attributing each new one to
the "Mummy's Curse" By 1935 they had credited 21 victims to King
Tut. Was there really a curse? Or was it all just the ravings of a
sensational press?
Herbert E. Winlock, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City, made his own calculations about the effectiveness
of the curse. According to to Winlock's figures of the 22 people
present when the tomb was opened in 1922, only 6 had died by 1934.
Of the 22 people present at the opening of the sarcophagus in 1924,
only 2 died in the following ten years. Also ten people were there
when the mummy was unwrapped in 1925, and all survived until at
least 1934.
In 2002 a medicine scholar at Monash University in Melbourne,
Australia, named Mark Nelson, completed a study which purportedly
showed that the curse of King Tut never really existed. Nelson
selected 44 Westerners in Egypt at the time the tomb was
discovered. Of those, twenty-five of the group were people
potentially exposed to the curse either because they were at the
breaking of the sacred seals in the tomb, or at the opening of the
sarcophagus, or at the opening of the coffins, or the unwrapping of
the mummy. The study showed that these exposures had no effect on
the length of their survival when compared to those not
exposed.
Perhaps, the power of a curse is in the mind of the person who
believes in it. Howard Carter, the man who actually opened the
tomb, never believed in the curse and lived to a reasonably old age
of 66 before dying of entirely natural causes.
