The year is 1922, and famed egyptologist Howard
Carter is frustrated. Months ago he had sent a telegraph to his
financier, Lord Carnarvon, informing him of another disappointing season of digging in
the harsh Egyptian desert with no luck. Lord Carnarvon's reply back had been simple:
you have one more season of funding to make a significant find. Carter thus returned to a spot he had previously
scouted but not dug at in the Valley of Kings, a line of ancient huts mostly covered over
with sand. Yet whatever secrets lay hidden under the
Egyptian sands remained that way, and now time- and money- was running out. If he didn't make a major discovery in the
next week or two, his funding and career both would be over. In the work site a young Egyptian water boy
is hurrying along bringing drinking water to the thirsty workers when suddenly, he trips
on a stone and dislodges it slightly. Curious, he pries the stone loose and his
eyes widen when he spies a set of stairs cut into the bedrock. Rushing to Carter's tent, cries of alarm ring
throughout the camp. Carter hurries to the accidental discovery,
prying away more stone to reveal a full flight of stairs leading deep into the earth. Crews labor to remove the blocking debris
until a man-sized opening is made, into which Carter steps through. Torch in hand, Carter descends the stairs
and arrives at a mud-plastered doorway, upon which are the stamps of several royal cartouches. His eyes go wide- whatever lies behind this
doorway is something big, something directly linked to the ancient kings of Egypt. He orders the hallway be refilled in order
to discourage tomb robbers and immediately departs for Cairo, where he sends a telegram
to Carnarvon informing him of the discovery. Carnarvon wires more funding to Carter, but
insists on being there for the tomb opening- and two and a half weeks later both men are
in the ancient staircase, standing before the mud-sealed doorway. With a chisel his grandmother had gifted him
for his 17th birthday, Carter makes a small hole in the top left hand corner of the doorway,
and raising a small candle to the hole, peers inside. At first he sees nothing, but then as the
dust settles the dim light of the candle reflects off golden and jeweled surfaces that litter
the chamber behind. Carnarvon impatiently asks Carter if he can
see anything, to which Carter famously replies, “Yes! Wonderful things!” Lost for three thousand years, Carter's discovery
of the tomb of Tutankhamun is widely considered one of the greatest archaeological achievements
in history, and yet the discovery was strangely plagued by a great deal of deaths which many
have attributed to the ancient curse of the Pharaohs. Others still point to more practical reasons
for these strange deaths, but the unsettling warnings of curses within the tombs themselves
can be rather harrowing. Take for instance this curse discovered in
an Old Kingdom era tomb: “Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb
shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose.” Eerily, many people involved with the excavation
of ancient tombs in Egypt have succumbed to strange diseases, or had previously diagnosed
diseases flare up and claim their lives. Yet many say that these were nothing more
than practical warnings that preyed on the superstition of ancient people, and if you
are burying a dead guy in a room full of gold and wealth it kind of makes sense to try and
scare away any would-be tomb robbers. Carter himself was said to propagate the myth
of an ancient curse in order to keep tomb robbers away after the discovery of Tutankhamun's
tomb, and yet none can deny that the penetration of these sacred resting places and the pilfering
of their riches has indeed led to some very strange incidents. But what about actual death caused by ancient
curses, or at least serious illness? For answers to those questions we can turn
to nine of the most famous alleged victims of the curse of the Pharaohs. George Herbert, or Lord Carnarvon, was the
financier behind Howard Carter's expeditions to the Valley of Kings, and one of the first
men to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun after his three thousand year rest. Months after the opening of the tomb mysterious
accidents had already plagued some of the workers involved with the original excavation,
and already newspapers were running rampant with tales of ancient curses being linked
to the ancient boy-king's tomb. A few months after his entrance into Tutankhamun's
resting place, Lord Carnarvon was shaving when he accidentally tore open a mosquito
bite which led to a blood infection. Days later he was dead, doctors attributing
the death to pneumonia and a severe infection of the skin and underlying soft tissues. Immediately the press jumped on the story,
claiming that Tutankhamun had claimed revenge on the man responsible for his disturbance-
yet more level-headed individuals were quick to point out that Lord Carnarvon had always
been prone to infections. A semi-invalid after a nearly fatal car accident
in 1903, Lord Carnarvon was prone to frequent and severe lung infections, and it was generally
believed that one severe bout of pneumonia could lead to his death at any time. Thus critics of the ancient curse theory point
out that the Lord's death was unfortunate, but completely ground in reality. Yet consider that many ancient Egyptian curses
warn of death by disease, and while Hollywood would have us believe in ancient mummies coming
to seek their revenge, what if the curse of the Pharaohs merely seals your doom by completely
natural means? What if the ancient curse was nothing more
than the slight nudging of Lord Carnarvon's razor blade, causing it to cut into the mosquito
bite which would become infected. Or perhaps, the curse was the prompting of
the mosquito in the first place, directed to bite Lord Carnarvon in the one place his
razor blade would slice.... A close friend of Howard Carter, Sir Bruce
Ingham was allegedly gifted a paperweight made from a mummified hand wearing a scarab
bracelet- which is rather macabre. Inscribed upon the bracelet were the words
written in ancient Egyptian: “Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water, and pestilence.” Soon after receiving the macabre gift, Ingham's
house was lost in a freak fire which completely gutted the home. After rebuilding it, the home was then hit
with a devastating flood. There's no news if disease ever visited Ingham,
but that may just be because he wisely thew the very disturbing gift away- we definitely
would have. People not directly involved in the dig, and
merely visiting the tomb were also susceptible to the alleged curse though, with the most
high profile of which was likely Prince Ali Hemal Fahmy Bey who was murdered within a
year of visiting the ancient tomb of Tutankhamen. Sir Lee Stack, governor of Sudan, also met
a violent death within a year of his visit to the ancient tomb. Another visitor to the tomb, British MP Aubrey
Herbert would go blind shortly after and end up dying of blood poisoning. If this still seems like mere coincidence,
Aubrey Herbert was Lord Carnarvon's half-brother, and upon entering the burial chamber remarked
aloud, “something dreadful is going to happen to our family.” One article in the Los Angeles Times however
commented “No matter how little superstitious a man may be, the act of breaking the rest
so carefully guarded through the centuries must cause an emotion which time can never
efface.” There's little doubt that there's truth to
those words, and we can only imagine the feeling of intrusion one must have when entering a
three thousand year old tomb. Yet if people were looking to explain away
the ancient curse as coincidences, then 1924 would do little to allay their fears. That year Sir Archibald Douglas-Reid, responsible
for the initial x-rays of King Tutankhamun's body, would go on to die of a mysterious illness-
making the words of the curse warning of death by a disease no doctor can diagnose ring eerily
true. After Sir Archibald was H.E. Evelyn-white, a promising archaeologist who
had been in the first team of explorers into Tutankhamun's tomb. He would go on to hang himself after writing
“I have succumbed to a curse”- although skeptics point out that Evelyn-White had just
suffered the death of a close friend, and may have been extremely depressed and meant
his depression as his curse. Dormant for a year, the curse reappeared in
1926 when George Benedite of the Louvre museum died after visiting the ongoing excavations
at the tomb. Aaron Ember, another Egyptologist, also died
that same year- this time of a freak accident in his home. After Howard Carter's main dig into the tomb
archaeologist A.C. Mace took over and spent from 1924 to 1928 on the site engaging in
further excavations and making more discoveries. However the longer he stayed on the site the
weaker he seemed to become, until in 1928 he collapsed, dying days later of suspected
arsenic poisoning in the same hospital as Lord Carnarvon. A year later skeptics would be rocked by two
further deaths, the first of Howard Carter's personal secretary Richard Bethell who had
been present when the tomb was first opened. He was found in November 1929, smothered to
death in his bed. A few months later, Bethel's father jumped
to his death from a seventh floor apartment, apparently in a fully delirious state. His suicide note read “I really cannot stand
any more horrors and hardly see what good I am going to do here, so I am making my exit.” His apartment was said to have been filled
with artifacts directly from the dig site, gifted to him by his son. Lastly, that same year Lord Carnarvon's other
half brother died from malarial pneumonia, bringing an end at last to the curse of the
Pharaohs. Within just six years of the discovery of
the tomb, Carnarvon, both of his half brothers, Carter's chief archaeologist, his personal
secretary and his secretary's father, the excavation's radiologist, and a half dozen
other prominent visitors to the tomb were all dead. Yet modern science points to a very possible
explanation for most of the deaths. After the death of an American egyptologist
in 1995, American politicians ordered an investigation into the hazards that mummies may pose, and
a subsequent scientific study showed that the mummies could carry several strains of
deadly bacteria and mold- exactly the type which could severely affect someone with a
weakened immune system such as some of the victims of the 1920's curse. There's also the fact that the press had sensationalized
the tales of a curse to such a degree, that some of the more mentally unstable people
involved in the excavation, such as Bethel and his father, may have legitimately linked
their mental troubles to the curse. Lastly, and this one is one of the more interesting
theories, is a recent publication by a historian studying famed Satanist Alistair Crowley's
notes who believes that the majority of the deaths were at the hands of Crowley himself. As a satanist who took inspiration for his
worship from ancient Egyptian deities, Crowley may have been deeply offended by the violation
of Tutankhamen's tomb, and sought to reap a revenge that could be attributed to the
ancient curse the media was writing about every day. This historian links Crowley directly to several
of the members who died as a result of the alleged curse, and the fact that they all
happened in Crowley's home of London, England, lends great credence to the theory. Ultimately we may never know if the curse
of the Pharaohs was real, or just an imagined explanation for the mysterious and tragic
deaths of Carter's team. It is easy to explain away superstitious talk
of ancient curses, and it's likely that the deaths were nothing more than natural causes
or perhaps the murder spree of a satanist fanatic- yet one can't help but note how very
strange it was for so many people directly linked with Tutankhamen's tomb to all die
within years of each other. Thought this video was interesting, check
out our other video, What If a Whale Accidentally Swallowed You? See you next time!
