King Tut's Curse

In 1922, Lord Carnarvon sponsored the archeological expedition of the archeologist Howard Carter. The purpose of the expedition was to discover the tomb of Tutankhamen. The tomb of Tutankhamen was very special because the seal was not broken. The difference with other tombs is that thieves broke into the tombs to steal everything they could. However, Tutankhamen tomb was not desecrated. Tutankhamun was found with all his treasure in the same location where the old Egyptians left him in 1323 BC. Before Carter entered the tomb, he noticed a warning that said: “They who enter this sacred tomb shall swift be visited by wings of death.” He ignored the warning and broke the seal, entered into the tomb and collected everything that was inside. He even kept some of Tutankhamun’s furniture and used it to decorate his home for a while.

It is not clear that the curse that Carter found at the tomb entrance was exactly the same as the one described above. He denied the fact that there was a curse. Some people think that as soon as he found the inscription, he hided it that way the workers did not leave the excavation. At the time of the pharaohs, Egypt was a very religious and a polytheist country. In fact, Tutankhamun was the one that returned to Egypt the polytheism that was taken away by his father Akhenaten. Religion was a very important part of Tutankhamun’s life and regime. It is possible that an inscription was put at the entrance of the tomb to protect the Pharaoh from thieves or desecration and that Carter found it.

The discovery of Tutankhamun was one of the most important discoveries of the twenty century. According to the curse people thought that when someone breaks the seal will be cursed and die. Maybe that was one of the reasons why the tomb of Tutankhamun was intact when Carter found it. According to the curse, everybody that enters the tomb will die. The curse became even scarier when Lord Carnarvon and his dog died six weeks after the official opening of the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. He died of an insect bite infection.

“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.”

The archeologist Zahi Hawass says that the reason why most of the Egyptian artifacts are taken to the museums is because they want to prevent people entering the tombs. The reason why is the Egyptian curses. If tourists keep entering the tombs, they will be cursed and bad things will happen to them.

The following chart and data shows some of the people who died after entering the tomb.

EVENT	NUMBER OF PEOPLE THERE	NUMBER OF DEATHS AFTER 10 YEARS
Burial chamber opening	26	6
Sarcophagus opening	22	2
Mummy unwrapping	10	0

Lord Carnarvon:

Carnarvon had been in poor health for over 20 years following a motoring accident in Germany. Less than two weeks after the official opening of the burial chamber, Carnarvon received a mosquito bite which became infected after he cut it while shaving. Carnarvon fell ill and, with his resistance lowered, came down with pneumonia and eventually passed away at the age of 57.

Howard Carter:

As discoverer of the tomb, Carter should have been Number 1 on the curse's "hit list", but he survived until March 1939, just short of his 65th birthday and nearly 17 years after entering the tomb - about a decade of which was spent working in the tomb itself.

Lady Evelyn Herbert:

Lady Evelyn, Lord Carnarvon's daughter and one of the first into the tomb, died in 1980 at the age of about 79.

Harry Burton:

Burton was the photographer loaned to Carter by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to document the work done in Tutankhamun's tomb. Many of the magnificent black & white photographs of the time were taken by Burton who died in 1940.

Alan Gardiner:

Gardiner studied the tomb's inscriptions and was still very active working on Egyptian grammar for many decades until his death in 1963.

Dr D. E. Derry:

Derry carried out the original autopsy on Tutankhamen’s mummy. If anyone should have been cursed along with Carter, it probably should have been Derry, but he didn't die until 1969.