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Add to FavoritesNearly everyone is familiar with the supposed curse of King Tutankhamun. But centuries prior to the discovery of King Tut's tomb, many other tombs of ancient pharaohs had been opened and robbed. Although many of these tombs had traps to prevent entry and even had inscriptions on the doors that were supposedly curses, the rumors of tomb robbers meeting with untimely ends are almost nonexistent. It is possible that the inscriptions were simply a scare tactic, but the belief in them was so strong, people truly believed that curses would come to pass on anyone disturbing a mummy's tomb. However, an inscription of a curse never existed anywhere in King Tut's tomb.
As early as 1699, Louis Pichiermentioned a curse in connection with mummies in his brief entitled "Treatise on Embalming According to the Ancient and Modern Ways." Egyptologist Dominic Montserrat believes that the curse associated with disturbing Egyptian mummies originated with a London show wherein mummies were unwrapped as a sort of gruesome "striptease" spectacle. Nineteenth century fiction writers capitalized on these rumors of curses and mummies. In 1869, in her short story entitled "Lost in a Pyramid: The Mummy's Curse," Louisa May Alcott told of the abuse of a mummy and the resultant retribution because of a deadly curse.
This fictional story may have led to the wild publicity regarding the curse that came about from the discovery and exploration of King Tut's tomb. From the time of the opening of King Tutankhamun's tomb in November of 1922, people have believed that a deadly curse befell those who disturbed the rest of the young Pharaoh. The rumor of the mummy's curse has been passed on as though it were fact for many decades now, but were the people that were present at the opening of King Tut's tomb really cursed?
Let's take a look at where the story of the curse was first made public. At the time that King Tut's tomb was discovered and opened, news was not instantly beamed around the world to televisions, and in fact the first television broadcast did not occur until 1927. Also, transatlanticcommerc ial phone service for use by the general public was not achieved until 1927. Reports of the discovery and exploration of the boy king's tomb were slow to traverse the world, and people learned of it mainly through newspapers. Playing upon the rampant superstitions of the general populace of the 1920s, reporters made sensational claims regarding the find in order to sell more newspapers. In March of 1923, novelist, Mari Colleti, sensationalized the idea of a curse when she published a warning of the deadly consequences of entering the sealed tomb of a pharaoh.
A few weeks after her publication, Lord Carnarvon, the financial backer of the archaeological exploration of Howard Carter, died in Cairo from an infection and the media whipped the public's belief in the superstition regarding the curse into frenzy. Lord Carnarvon had been in poor health for nearly 20 years prior to his entering King Tut's tomb as a result of a motoring accident and penicillin did not exist for another 5 years after his death. Stories spread quickly about a power outage in Cairo when Lord Carnarvon died, although power outages in Cairo at that time were common occurrences. Another story that told of Lord Carnarvon's dog starting to howl and then dying at the same time as her master could never be verified. What has been verified is that many ancient Egyptian tombs contain deadly mold, such as staphylococcus, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus, capable of killing a person if one has an immune deficiency.
But what about the stories of mysterious deaths of everyone that entered the tomb or touched the treasures brought out of it? The fact is that of the 26 people who were present when the boy Pharaoh's tomb was opened, only Lord Carnarvon died within the first year after entering the tomb. Only five others present at the opening of the tomb died within ten years. The remainder of those who were associated with the find lived a relatively long life and died of natural causes, including Howard Carter, who actually was the first to enter the tomb. Several years after death of Lord Carnarvon, Dr. Douglas Derry performed an autopsy on King Tut's mummy and lived to the age of 87.
So what has the curse actually made happen? Rumors of the curse of King Tut have made the boy king the most famous of all of the pharaohs, brought tourists to Egypt by the millions and made movie producers rich. Hmmm, maybe not all curses are bad.
Learn more about this author, Colleen Mart.
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Happened
The Curse of the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut
There are those that argue that the buried secrets of ancient Egypt are dead and gone. They claim that beneath the shifting sands of northern Africa no hidden terrors hide. Some insist that curses are in the minds of the susceptible, only finding safe harbor in the frenzied nightmares of gullible fools.
They are all wrong - terribly wrong.
Thirty-five hundred years ago an Egyptian queen was laid to rest. As the ancient laws dictated in the holy Book of the Dead she was prepared for her afterlife by the embalming method of mummification. Her royal possessions - including her slaves and handmaidens - were all buried with the queen to attend her needs on the other side. The priests had the workers bury her deep so that her tomb would lie undisturbed under the blowing sands and African skies. And there she remained . . . until the late Nineteenth Century.
The year was 1890 and four young Englishmen observing the ongoing excavations at the Luxor site were offered a bizarre deal by a foreman in charge of the laborers. For a certain price he offered them a memento unlike any other. A conversation piece that would become the talk of London: the exquisitely handmade, gold inlaid sarcophagus of a former queen of Egypt, Queen Hatshepsut.[1]
The four young adventurers could not pass up such an opportunity. After drawing lots to see who would win the prize, the winner paid several hundreds of pounds and had the coffin shipped to his hotel in Cairo.
The very next day the first tragedy struck. One of the four men was inexplicably shot in the arm by an Egyptian manservant. The wound was such a grievous one that the arm eventually had to be amputated.
The curse of Queen Hatshepsut had begun.[2]
Upon returning to England, misfortune befell a second man in the party. He discovered that the bank he kept all his savings in had failed and he was left virtually penniless. Soon afterwards another of the four lost his position at a company he had worked at for some years, was disposed and forced to make a living selling penny matches on street corners.
Meanwhile the coffin slowly approached England. Queen Hatshepsut sailed towards Britain in the hold of a British merchant vessel.
Seeing the terrible fate visited upon his companions, the purchaser of the sarcophagus hurriedly arranged the sale of the artifact to a London merchant.
The merchant took possession of the royal coffin on the docks of Liverpool. As it was being unloaded a winch slipped and a heavy wooden crate crashed to the docks killing two longshoremen.
Within three weeks of accepting delivery of the accursed coffin, the merchant rid himself of its evil by donating it to the Royal British Museum. He had a strong motivation. During the three weeks he owned the coffin several of his family members had become severely ill and a minor fire had erupted in his home.
By now the sarcophagus of Queen Hatshepsut had become the talk of the city; the prestigious London Times ran a feature about the strange tragedies. Yet, despite its reputation the museum agreed to take the sarcophagus for display in its famous Egyptian wing.
As the coffin was being unloaded from a wagon in the courtyard of the museum, an axle gave way and the heavy wagon bed injured a woman passerby. She had to be rushed to a nearby hospital. Yet the mishaps did not end there. Two workmen carrying the coffin up the steps into the museum slipped and one fractured his leg. The other, a younger man in his thirties, counted himself lucky.
Two days later the younger man died. Doctors were unable to determine exactly what it was that killed him. But Londoners suspected it was the mummy.
The queen's stay in the Royal Museum was neither a quiet one nor peaceful. Night watchmen swore they heard low moans coming from the Egyptian wing. Many quit - even after the directors offered them higher wages to stay. Mysterious fires broke out in odd places. Museum staff fell ill for no apparent reason. Other exhibits in the room were found vandalized or tossed about by some unseen force.
Finally the sarcophagus was removed from the exhibit. The chief messenger of the museum supervised the removal of the rare artifact to a secure area in the basement. Now the authorities breathed a sigh of relief. They felt certain the sarcophagus and its queen could cause no more trouble.
Within a week one of the workmen who had helped move the coffin to the basement fell violently ill. The day after that the chief messenger was found sitting at his desk in the museum, dead.
The Telegraph, the Guardian, the Times - all the London papers ran lurid articles touting the curse of the Egyptian queen. A news photographer sent to take a photo of the mummy case did so, only to discover when the photograph was developed that the painted face on the lid had somehow changed into a terrifying, contorted face of a screaming human. The photographer left the paper and went home. Authorities found his body two days later; he had shot himself in the head.[3]
At this point, with the London populace reaching the boiling point, the museum announced its intentions to divest itself of Queen Hatshepsut.[4] Making good on their decision was not an easy matter. Museum authorities soon found that no other museum in England or the Continent would take the sarcophagus. The fact that more than thirty people connected with the artifact had already met with tragedy had been well publicized.
At last the museum authorities found a wealthy American collector - a man who fancied himself an amateur archeologist - who offered them a large sum for the queen and her trappings. Rarely did the museum enter into transactions with private individuals. This case was an exception borne out of desperation.
Arrangements were made for the sarcophagus of Queen Hatshepsut to be shipped to New York City. As it so happened, the next ship making steam for New York was the newest ship of the White Star line. The queen would ride along on its maiden voyage.
On April 14, 1912 amid frenzied panic and screams in the night, the queen went down with fifteen hundred other passengers to a watery tomb in the north Atlantic.
The American collector had chosen to ship his queen on the Titanic . . .
Journalist William Thomas Stead [5], one of the doomed ship's passengers had informed some dinner companions during the third night of the voyage that the cursed Queen Hatshepsut was making the voyage with them. He had been told this by a crewmember and checked with the purser of the ship who confirmed that it was true.
When the Titanic sank, Stead went down with the ship. Several of the survivors having been at Stead's table that night related their story to the media. Since their tale involved the now infamous Queen Hatshepsut it was duly reported by the press on both sides of the Atlantic.
And that is where the tale of tragedy and death ended, at the bottom of the ocean in the north Atlantic, until 2001 when a new chapter was written. The company that had overseen the deep sea recovery of Titanic artifacts from their ongoing salvage operation had run into difficulties and the Washington Post speculated that perhaps the queen's curse was still at work.[6] Whether it was or not, the company surmounted its difficulties and contracted to store quite a few of the recovered artifacts in a deep, secured vault. The priceless objects were placed near other vaults containing ingots of silver and bars of gold. Rumors that the company had recovered and stored the queen there were denied by company officials.
On September 11, 2001, the vaults were buried under millions of tons of rubble as the World Trade Center collapsed in the aftermath of two terrorist attacks.
Had the curse of Queen Hatshepsut reached out to claim more victims one last time?
Links
[1] Lid of the sarcophogus of Queen Hatshepsut
[2] Egyptian bust of Queen Hatshepsut
[3] Artist representation of Queen Hatshepsut
[4] Computer graphic image of Queen Hatshepsut
[5] Journalist William Thomas Stead
[6] "Some hunters have spoken darkly of the famous mummy that was allegedly on board, saying it transferred the curse of all who disturbed its grave to the vessel's maiden voyage and to all search efforts." - "Research Ship May Have to Halt Effort to Locate the Titanic" - Washington Post, 1980.
Learn more about this author, Terrence Aym.
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