Are archaeologist Howard Carter and his team truly struck by the Curse of Tutankhamun? (5 photos)

In November 1922, the famous British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died in 1327 BC at the age of about 18 years.





This discovery became a real world sensation and fueled the interest of archaeologists and historians from all over the world to begin to more carefully study the history of Egypt. While an unremarkable boy pharaoh named Tutankhamun became the most famous ruler of Ancient Egypt in the eyes of ordinary people who knew nothing about the history of this country.

But did you know that after Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened, several mysterious situations occurred in Howard Carter’s team, including several deaths and incomprehensible phenomena, which many journalists circulated in the world press as the “curse of Pharaoh Tutankhamun”?

What caused such panic in the world press in 1922? Is it true that Howard Carter and his team were overtaken by the “Curse of the Pharaoh”?

Many in Howard Carter's team associated the successful discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb with the bird he acquired



Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn Herbert and Howard Carter at Tutankhamun's tomb

From the very first day of excavations, local Egyptians told archaeologist Howard Carter about the existing curse that would overtake anyone who tried to disturb the peace of any ancient pharaoh. But since Howard Carter did not believe in mysticism, this did not frighten him at all and he continued to conduct excavations with the hope of finding the tomb of the pharaoh untouched by the robbers.

Carter spent many months searching for the tomb, and his venture was financed by wealthy patron (and archeology buff) Lord Carnarvon. However, after a huge amount of lost money and time, Lord Carnarvon decided to stop funding, but Howard Carter managed to convince him to fund another season of excavations.

Exactly one week before the end of the funding, Howard Carter visited a local market in Egypt, where one of his assistants pointed at a bird in a cage and exclaimed: “This golden bird will bring good luck. She will help us find a tomb full of gold." This bird was a canary in a gilded cage, and Howard Carter bought it, following the advice of his assistant, in the hope that its singing would lift his spirits and bring him good luck.

And no matter how strange it may sound, exactly a few days after buying the canary, Howard Carter actually discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. Not knowing whose tomb was found, Egyptian archaeologists working for Carter nicknamed it “the tomb of the Golden Bird,” complaining that it was the bird that helped Carter make the discovery.

But it was because of the bird that the first hints of the existing Curse of the Pharaoh began to appear in Carter’s team, and then in the press.





Here is the inspector general's report from Howard Carter's team about what happened to the canary when the tomb was discovered:

“During the recent excavations that led to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, Mr. Howard Carter had a recently purchased canary in his house, which delighted him with its beautiful singing. However, on the day the entrance to the tomb was discovered, a king cobra crawled into Carter's house, attacked a canary flying around the room and ate it. Nowadays cobras are rare in Egypt and even less common in winter, but in ancient times they were considered a symbol of royalty and the pharaoh’s headdress itself resembled a cobra hood, as if indicating that he was protected by the cobra goddess named Wadjet. Therefore, the locals took the mystical incident in Carter’s house as a warning to people from the ancient gods not to approach the tomb, and many Egyptian workers even decided to quit Carter’s team without asking for money for their labors.”

For many, Carter described this “mystical” situation as an ordinary accident, but then several other strange things happened



Howard Carter studies Tutankhamun's sarcophagus

Howard Carter and his team opened the first intact tomb in history, where they found burial chambers, the mummified body of a young pharaoh, a huge amount of gold jewelry, religious objects, wall paintings and inscriptions, and things that the pharaoh might need in his afterlife.

The opened tomb created a sensation all over the world, but rumors immediately spread about the curse of anyone who dared to disturb the peace of the pharaoh. The Times of London and the New York World magazine reported that many Egyptians believed that "a terrible punishment would surely follow upon anyone who entered the tomb."

Soon, Lord Carnarvon died in Cairo at the age of 56, and the entire city's lights went out and a strange howl was heard, causing a storm of speculation. Arthur Conan Doyle told the American press that Carnarvon's death and strange events could have been caused by the spirit of an "evil elemental" summoned by Egyptian priests to protect the mummy.

But a couple of days later, under mysterious circumstances, another member of Howard Carter’s team died and the entire Western press began to publish articles about these “mystical” events.

The mysterious death of two experts who participated in the discovery of the tomb created in the eyes of the world press a possible story about a real curse that hung over archaeologists who risked disturbing the peace of the ancient pharaoh.

The following deaths followed:



Hugh Evelyn-White: archaeologist who took part in the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb. It is believed that he committed suicide in 1924 due to being very afraid of the curse, and also because many of his friends who were members of the research team died mysteriously after the tomb was found. Nothing was found in his room except a letter that said: “I have succumbed to a curse that makes me disappear.”

Aaron Amber: one of Howard Carter's most talented colleagues, died in a fire in his home in 1926, when, on the advice of his wife, he went to save his ancient Egyptian manuscript, which he had been working on translating for several years. By the way, what kind of manuscript was this? "Egyptian Book of the Dead", which Amber took with him from Tutankhamun's tomb.

Arthur Mace of Carter's excavation team, who is said to have died of arsenic poisoning in 1928.

Georges Benedite: French Egyptologist, famous for the discovery of Aketetep's tomb at Saqqara, died shortly after visiting Tutankhamun's tomb.

Richard Bethell (Carter's personal secretary) died in 1929, seven years after the tomb's discovery, as a result of a respiratory illness and his father committed suicide in 1930.

Radiologist Archibald Douglas Reid, who was responsible for X-raying Tutankhamun's mummy before it was sent to the museum, died exactly three days later.

Gamal Mehrez, the former director of antiquities who visited the tomb with Carter, died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

So, was there really some kind of mystical curse?

In fact, most of the people who worked on Howard Carter's team or visited the tomb were already quite old. These people died from various causes after a long period of time, and not in one day. It was very profitable for the press to do such publications, since the topic of Ancient Egypt was on the rise in the 1920s and 1930s.

The first person to enter the tomb was Howard Carter himself; he outlived many of his colleagues and did not succumb to any mystical punishments. In general, Howard Carter, until the end of his life, angrily rejected all rumors about possible curses, calling them “complete nonsense.” But when Carter died alone and miserable from Hodgkin's disease in his London apartment in March 1939 at the age of 64, the story of the curse of the mummy in all the news papers took on new life and even to this day haunts the minds of archaeologists and science fiction writers around the world.