Sensory Perception - the Mummy's Curse

"The Mummy's Curse"

We all grew up on legends and mysteries. Some of us believe in them while others do not. Either way, legends and mysteries make great stories. One of Egypt's most famous legend and mystery was the "Mummy's Curse". The Egyptians believed that if anyone disturbed a sealed tomb, they were bound to be cursed.

On November 26, 1922 excavator Howard Carter and the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon opened the tomb of King Tutankhamen by breaking the seal of the inner door. According to legend the curse started on the very first day. Earl Carnarvon had a pet canary that was swallowed by a cobra the same day that the tomb was opened. Legend linked this to the curse for the cobra was the type of serpent that was used to decorate the brow of King Tutankhamen's death mask that was made of gold. At the beginning of March 1923, Earl Carnarvon had gotten a mosquito bite on his check which became infected. Within a month Earl Carnarvon's health diminished from a fever, to blood poisoning, and then to pneumonia which lead to his death on April 5, 1923. Of course the media linked all of this to the "Mummy's Curse" along with all the other deaths that occurred to everyone who was connected to the excavation of King Tutankhamen's tomb. A lot of this legend was made public by the famous novelist Marie Corelli. What was not made public was the fact that Earl Carnarvon had suffered some serious injuries in a car crash in 1901, and since the crash his health had become very fragile.

Mark R. Nelson of Monash University in Prahran, Australia, studied the diaries and notes of Howard Carter to find out what happened to everyone who entered the tomb between 1923 and 1926. Nelson did a comparison of the lifespans of people that entered the tomb to people on the expedition team that did not enter the tomb. Nelson found that 24 men entered the tomb and lived to be on an average 70 years old. Nelson found that there were seven male bystanders on this team that lived to be on an average of 75 years old. Nelson did not do a study on the few women that were on the team due to the fact that he could not find their birth certificate or death certificate. Nelson did discover that the tomb was entered by only one woman who was Lady Evelyn Herbert. Ironically, Lady Evelyn Herbert outlived all the men that entered the tomb. She lived to be 79 years old.

It is a known fact that ancient Egyptians would leave written curses on the outside of tombs, but it is said that there was not one left outside of King Tutankhamen's. It is also a known fact that there were a lot of newspaper journalists competing against each other for the coverage of the opening of King Tutankhamen's tomb, so it is believed that the newspapers were the ones that started the rumor of a "Mummy's Curse". King Tutankhamen's tomb remained