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, which does not differentiate 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 Carter’s team and related visitors to the site kept the story alive, especially in cases of death by violence or under odd circumstances:
Explorer James Henry Breasted was an Egyptologist who was working with Carter when the tomb was opened. The Egyptian workers were sure the tomb’s discovery was due to Breasted’s pet Canary, killed when a cobra slithered into its cage. The cobra was the symbol of the pharaoh’s power.
Lord Carnarrvon
The second victim of the Mummy’s 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 afterward. This occurred a few months after the tomb was opened. He died at 2:00 AM on April 5, 1923. At the exact moment of his death, all the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out. Two thousand long miles away in England, Carnarvon’s dog howled and dropped dead at the same instant.
Sir Bruce Ingham
Howard Carter gave a papyrus scroll to his friend Sir Bruce Ingham as a gift. The papyrus apparently consisted of a mummified hand wearing a bracelet that was inscribed with the phrase, “Cursed be he who moves my body.” Ingham’s house burned to the ground shortly after receiving the gift, and when he tried to rebuild, it was hit by a flood.
George Jay Gould was a wealthy American financier and railroad executive who visited the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1923 and fell seriously ill shortly afterward. He never really recovered and died of pneumonia a few months later.
Evelyn-White, a British archaeologist, journeyed to Tut’s tomb and may have experienced excitement at the site. After witnessing the treasures in the discovery by 1924, he engaged himself, but not before writing, “I have succumbed to a curse which forces me to disappear.”
It’s said that Lord Carnarvon’s health, Aubrey Herbert, suffered from the course mere seconds before death. Herbert was born with a degenerative eye condition and became blind later in life. A doctor suggested that his vision might somehow interfere with his perception, and Herbert had every tooth pulled from his head to regain his sight. It didn’t work. He died of sepsis mere months after the surgery.
American Egyptologist Aaron Ember found himself surrounded by many of the people present 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 escaped safely, but his wife encouraged him to save a manuscript he had been working on while she watched their son. Sadly, they and the family’s maid died in the catastrophe. The name of Ember’s manuscript? The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Sir Archibald Douglas Reid
Ensuring that you didn’t have to be one of the experts or expedition members to fall victim to the curse, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid, a radiologist, carefully X-rayed Tut before the mummy was given to museum authorities. He fell sick the next day and was deceased three days later.
Mohammed Ibrahim
Approximately 43 years later, the curse descended upon Mohammed Ibrahim, who officially agreed to Tutankhamun’s treasures being sent to Paris for an exhibition. His daughter was accidentally hurt in a car accident, and Ibrahim dreamed he would meet the same fate. He failed and was struck by a car. He died two days later.