Supposed Curses of Mummies & Tombs

In 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamens burial chamber. Upon entering the tomb, Carters lucky canary, which supposedly led him to the remote site, was eaten by a cobra.

From EgyptVoyager.com - "The curses were directed at tomb robbers and those who sought to despoil the tomb. It may be that since Egyptologists make the name of the dead live by their discoveries and publications, (and therefore the soul), they would not be punished but actually be blessed by the ancients."

"In the 21st dynasty of the Pharaos, 3,000 years ago, there took place one night at a temple, the funeral of Henut Taui - the Lady of the Two lands."

"If the fault was not in the tests, what else could lie behind the impossibility of mummies containing drugs from coca and tobacco, from a continent not discovered until over 1,000 years after the end of the Egyptian civilisation?"

A Tour Egypt feature story - "When, in November of 1922, Howard Carter discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor, the world was really very different then it is today. It was not a time of instant, live television coverage by investigative reporters. Rather, the world of media still belonged to newspapers, and information traveled much more slowly, and less reliably. It was a more superstitious time, and the media was fully adjusted to take advantage of the attribute to sell their publications. It was a time when reporters often simply made up facts in order to sensationalize their stories, and in print, people believed them."

"The discovery of tobacco fragments in the mummified body of Ramses II should have had a profound influence upon our whole understanding of the relationship between ancient Egypt and America but this piece of evidence was simply ignored."

CAIRO (CNN) -- In Cairo's famed Khan El-Khalili bazaar, merchants hawk the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. [CNN Archives]

There's a postscript to this story. In 1999 a German microbiologist, Gotthard Kramer, from the University of Leipzig, suggested that there might be some scientific truth to the stories of a curse. He analyzed 40 mummies and identified several potentially dangerous mold spores on each. Mold spores are tough and can survive thousands of years even in a dark, dry tomb. Although most are harmless, a few can be toxic. [Lee Krystek 1997, 1999]

     

---

This Entire Site is Indexed Weekly by the FreeFind Search Engine