Curses of Egypt

When you think about curses sooner or later Egypt will probably pop into your mind, and possibly the tombs of the pharaoh's. Perhaps the most famous of these curses involved the discovery of Tutankhamen in 1923.

The expedition was headed by Egyptologist Lord Canarvon and archaeologist Howard Carter. As they entered the tomb both knew about the curse which had protected the treasures within from those who would have robbed the grave since 1352 B.C when the boy Pharaoh was entombed. Canarvon had even consulted a mystic and some mediums before beginning the expedition and every single one of them told him not to open the tomb, advice he ignored at his peril. Within two months 57 year old Canarvon was dead, the victim of an infected mosquito bite. The date of his death was the 5th of April 1923. This date is remembered by the Continental Hotel of Cairo since simultaneously their electricity failed for no apparent reason and back in England Carnarvon's faithful dog was heard to bark once before dropping dead. Two days after his death when examining the face of Tutankhamen it was noted he bore a mark on his left cheek, identical to that of the mosquito bite upon Carnarvon's corpse. Perhaps this was nothing more than coincidence they concluded. That was until the other deaths began. An archaeologist by the name of Arthur Mace who had participated in opening the tomb dropped into a coma at the same hotel which had experienced the power failure and died. Doctors were unable to identity the illness which had resulted in his death. George Gould, a close friend of Canarvon went to Egypt to look at the tomb and was mysteriously found dead two days afterwards.

Radiologist Archibald Reid who examined the corpse of the Pharaoh died soon after this, as did Carnarvon's secretary Richard Bethell. By 1936, 33 people present during the opening of the tomb had met with unexpected deaths. Mohammed Ibraham, the man who agreed to send the tomb's treasures to Paris for an exhibition was run over and killed in 1966. Howard Carter died of supposed natural causes in 1939. So, by 1969, Richard Adamson was the sole surviving member of the 1923 expedition. He was quoted on saying that the curse was nothing but "mumbo, jumbo," but he changed his view after his wife died within a day of his public denouncement of his curse. He spoke out again at a later date and within days he had broken his back in a freak accident. Ken Parkinson the flight engineer suffered a heart attack every year on the anniversary of the flight from Egypt until the final one on 1978 which killed him. The flight lieutenant Rick Laurie died of heart failure two years before that, though he had been healthy before this. Anorher member of the flight crew suffered two heart attacks, another left the RAF due to unixplicable illness and the last lost his house in a fire.