The “curse of the pharaohs” is supposed to fall on anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not distinguish between thieves and archaeologists, can cause bad luck, illness, or even death.

The famous Curse of the Mummy 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 Tut

Although no curse had been found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, the deaths in the following years of several members of Carter’s team and of real or supposed visitors to the site kept the story alive, especially in cases of death by violence or in strange circumstances. :

Canary

James Henry Breasted was a famous Egyptologist who was working with Carter when the tomb was opened. Egyptian workers were certain that the discovery of the tomb was due to Breasted’s pet canary, which died when a cobra slipped into its cage. The cobra was the symbol of the pharaoh’s power.

Mr. Carnarvon

The second victim of the Mummy Curse was 53-year-old Lord Carnarvon himself, who accidentally opened a mosquito bite while shaving and ended up dying from blood poisoning shortly after. This occurred a few months after the tomb was opened. He died at 2:00 in the morning on April 5, 1923. At the exact moment of his death, all the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out. Two thousand miles away in England, Carnarvon’s dog howled and fell dead at exactly the right moment.

Mr Bruce Ingham

Howard Carter gave a paperweight to his friend Sir Bruce Ingham. The paperweight appropriately consisted of a mummified hand wearing a bracelet that supposedly had the phrase “cursed is he who moves my body.” Ingham’s house burned to the ground shortly after receiving the gift, and when he attempted to rebuild it, it suffered a flood.

George Jay Gould

George Jay Gould was a wealthy American financier and railroad executive who visited Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1923 and fell ill almost immediately afterwards. He never really recovered and died of pneumonia a few months later.

Evelyn Blanco

Evelyn-White, a British archaeologist, visited Tut’s tomb and may have helped excavate the site. After watching death sweep away some two dozen of her fellow diggers in 1924, Evelyn-White hanged herself, but not before writing, supposedly in her blood: “I have succumbed to a curse that forces me to disappear.”

Aubrey Herbert

Lord Carnarvon’s half-brother Aubrey Herbert is said to have suffered King Tut’s curse simply for being related to him. Herbert was born with a degenerative eye disease and became blind at an advanced age. A doctor suggested that his rotted and infected teeth somehow interfered with his vision, and Herbert had all the teeth in his head removed to regain his sight. It didn’t work. However, he died of sepsis as a result of the surgery, just five months after the death of his supposedly cursed brother.

Aaron Ember

The American Egyptologist Aaron Ember was friends with many of the people present when the tomb was opened, including Lord Carnarvon. Ember died in 1926 when his Baltimore home burned down less than an hour after he and his wife hosted a dinner party. He could have safely left, but his wife encouraged him to put away a manuscript he had been working on while she went to pick up their son. Unfortunately, they and the family maid died in the catastrophe. The name of Ember’s manuscript? The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Sir Archibald Douglas Reid

To prove that you did not have to be one of the excavators or sponsors of the expedition to be a victim of the curse, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid, a radiologist, simply took an x-ray of Tut before the mummy was handed over to museum authorities. He became ill the next day and died three days later.

Mohamed Ibrahim

Some 43 years later, the curse fell on one Mohammed Ibrahim, who officially agreed to have Tutankhamun’s treasures sent to Paris for an exhibition. His daughter was seriously injured in a car accident and Ibrahim dreamed that she would suffer the same fate and tried to stop the export of the treasure. He missed and was hit by a car. He died two days later.

Did these strange deaths occur because of the Mummy’s curse? Or did all this happen by coincidence? What is your thought?