The “Curse of the Pharaohs” is believed to be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, not differentiated between thieves and archaeologists, can cause bad luck, illness, or even death!
The famous Mummy’s Curse had baffled the best scientific minds since 1923 when Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt.
The Curse Of King Tutankhamun
Though no curse had been found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, deaths in successive years of various members of Carterβs team and related visitors to the site kept the story alive, especially in cases of death by violence or in odd circumstances:
Canary
James Henry Breasted was a famous Egyptologist who was working with Carter when the tomb was opened. The Egyptian workers were sure the tombβs discovery was due to Breastedβs pet canary, killed when a cobra slithered into its cage. The cobra was the symbol of the pharaohβs power.
Lord Carnarvon
The second victim of the Mummyβs Curse was 53-year-old Lord Carnarvon himself, who accidentally tore open a mosquito bite while shaving and ended up dying of blood poisoning shortly after that. This occurred a few months after the tomb was opened. He died at 2:00 AM on April 5, 1923. At the exact instant of his death, all the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out. Two thousand long miles away in England, Carnarvonβs dog howled and dropped dead at the exact moment.
Sir Bruce Ingham
Howard Carter gave a paperweight to his friend Sir Bruce Ingham as a gift. The paperweight appropriately consisted of a mummified hand wearing a bracelet that was supposedly inscribed with the phrase, βcursed be he who moves my body.β Inghamβs house burned to the ground not long after receiving the gift, and when he tried to rebuild, it was hit with a flood.
George Jay Gould was a wealthy American financier and railroad executive who visited the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1923 and fell sick almost immediately afterward. He never fully recovered and died of pneumonia a few months later.
Evelyn White
Evelyn White, a British archaeologist, visited Tutβs tomb and may have helped excavate the site. After suffering death shortly after the excavation, White confided, βI have succumbed to a curse which forces me to disappear.β
Aubrey Herbert
Itβs said that Lord Carnarvonβs half-brother, Aubrey Herbert, suffered from King Tutβs curse mere months before his death. Herbert was born with a degenerative eye condition and became blind later in life. A doctor suggested that his retina, influenced by his vision, and Herbert had every tooth pulled from his head to regain his sight. It didnβt work. He died of sepsis as a result of the surgery, just five months after the death of his supposedly cursed brother.
Aaron Ember was a prominent American Egyptologist and researcher who was friends with many of the prominent figures when the tomb was opened, including Lord Carnarvon. Ember died in 1926 when his house in Baltimore burned down less than an hour after he and his wife hosted a dinner party. He could have exited safely, but his wife encouraged him to save a manuscript he had been working on while she fetched their son. Sadly, they and the family maid died in the catastrophe. The name of Ember’s manuscript? The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Sir Archibald Douglas Reid
Proving that you didn’t have to be one of the excavators or expedition backers to fall victim to the curse, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid, a radiologist, examined Tut’s bones sent to Paris for an exhibition. His daughter was seriously hurt in a car accident, and Reid dreamed he would meet the same fate and tried to stop the export of the treasure. He failed and was hit by a car. He died two days later.
Did these bizarre deaths happen due to the Mummyβs curse? Or, is all this happenstance? Whatβs your thought?
