The pharaoh’s burial chamber was initially accessed on February 16, 1923, by the archaeologist Howard Carter. Share Article Share Article Facebook X LinkedIn Reddit Bluesky Email Copy Link Link copied Bookmark Comments
Individuals who meddled with the sepulcher of Pharaoh Tutankhamun have reportedly suffered its consequences until their demise – often occurring relatively swiftly following interaction with the youthful monarch.
It marks the anniversary of the sepulcher’s opening on February 16, when the archaeologist Howard Carter elevated the sarcophagus within a secluded Egyptian sepulchral chamber and exposed the mummy of Tutankhamun.
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Since that pivotal day in 1923, Carter’s finding has deepened our insight into Egyptian interments – yet instigated homicides, a poisoning incident, a suicide, deceased creatures, and even a fatal mosquito that ended the life of the Downton Abbey proprietor.
The 3,300-year-old preserved remains of Tutankhamun persist in captivating and appalling people across the globe.
Nonetheless, as the scientists participating in the endeavor began encountering adversity and mortality on a grand scale, attention shifted away from the history and centered around the purported “curse of the pharaohs” – a reputed affliction believed by some to plague anybody who violates the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian, according to History Today.
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes author, proposed that the peculiar events were instigated by “elementals” summoned by Tutankhamun’s priests to safeguard the Royal tomb, thereby amplifying public fascination.
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Skeptics have pointed out many others who toured the tomb or took part in its finding lived extended and robust lives, and that only eight of the 58 persons present during the tomb and sarcophagus’s opening succumbed.
Regardless of one’s acceptance of the connections, considerable mortality is undeniably associated with Tutankhamun.
The initial episode transpired soon after the tomb’s original unveiling, when Carter allegedly dispatched a messenger back to his residence.
As the courier approached the house, they detected a “faint, almost human cry” and found a cobra within a birdcage, with a pet canary in its grip.
This was taken to be the Royal Cobra, akin to the one embellishing the Pharaoh King’s head. It was presumed the curse reached Carter’s dwelling on the precise day the King’s tomb was breached.
The initial death involved Lord Carnarvon, who financed the excavation that revealed the tomb. His family’s estate, Highclere Castle, serves as the tangible backdrop for the structure recognized by ITV viewers as Downton Abbey.
He died on April 5, 1923, four months and seven days after the tomb’s opening, giving in to an infection resulting from a mosquito bite that festered after shaving.
American railway magnate George Jay Gould toured the tomb in May 1923, shortly after its opening. Weeks later he died on the French Riviera after contracting a fever.
Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey of Egypt was fatally shot by his wife on July 10, 1923, shortly after being photographed at the Pharo’s tomb.
Lord Carnarvon’s half-sibling also experienced a tragic ending. Colonel The Hon. Aubrey Herbert, MP, suffered from nearing blindness and sadly died on September 26, 1923, because of blood poisoning ensuing a dental operation intended to regain his sight.
Lord Carnarvon’s other half-brother, The Hon. Mervyn Herbert, died in 1929 from what was described as “malarial pneumonia”.
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In a bizarre sequence of events, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid, the radiologist who X-rayed Tutankhamun’s mummy, succumbed to a baffling ailment in 1924.
Anthropologist Henry Field, who toured the tomb in 1925, recounts a chilling narrative from his experience with the tomb.
A paperweight presented to Carter’s associate Sir Bruce Ingham was composed of a mummified hand sporting a scarab bracelet inscribed with a curse: “Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water and pestilence.”
Soon after acquiring this foreboding present, Ingram’s residence was engulfed in flames and subsequently flooded after its reconstruction.
Sir Lee Stack, Governor General of Sudan, one of the earliest tourists of the tomb, encountered a calamitous demise on November 19, 1924, when he was shot while traveling through Cairo.
A. C. Mace, a contributor to Carter’s dig team whose chronicle of the tomb’s opening has been extensively analyzed, died in 1928 because of arsenic poisoning.
Captain The Hon. Richard Bethell, Howard Carter’s personal aide, was discovered suffocated in his bed on November 15, 1929.
His father, Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury, sadly passed away three months later, supposedly leaping from his seventh-floor apartment where the tomb’s valuables were kept.
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He left a written statement declaring: “I really cannot endure any more horrors and hardly perceive what good I am going to do here, so I am making my exit.”
Finally, Carter himself died on March 2, 1939. Some still attribute his death to the infamous “curse” – even though he died of natural causes at 64.