Mummy\'s Curse the Objective of This Study

Mummy's Curse

The objective of this study is to consider the Mummy's Curse, which involved a series of unexplainable, unfortunate, or tragic events that happened to the individuals who were present at the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb. King Tut's tomb was discovered in Egypt in 1923. Six weeks following the tomb being opened the individual who financed the expedition died suddenly and following his death was the circulation of a rumor about a 'mummy's curse'. However, Lord Carnarvon, the financier of the expedition is reported to have suffered ill health for more than 2 decades before the tomb being opened due to a motor vehicle accident and to have died of pneumonia. Reports at that time stated that at the precise moment that Lord Carvarvon died that the lights in Cairo went out and that his dog howled and died at the same instant as well. Apparently, the newspaper printed a curse that was stated to have been found in the tomb and specifically that the curse stated: "They who enter this sacred tomb shall swift be visited by wings of death." (Tour Egypt, 2013, p.1) However, reports today state that this curse was an invention of the press and that no such curse existed in the tomb of King Tut. It is additionally reported that newspapers of the day "appear to have arbitrarily killed of many people surrounding the tomb's discovery. According to one list, 26 people associated with the find died within a decade of its discovery. In reality, only six people died during the first decade, while many others lived to an old age." (Tour Egypt, 2013, p.1)

The Beginning of the Curse

The Mummy's Curse did not begin with King Tut's tomb being discovered but instead, "the mummy's curse actually originates during the 1820s when an English author and a bizarre theatrical striptease act where state mummies were unwrapped." (Tour Egypt, 2013, p.1) This show, which was presented near the Piccadilly Circus in London in 1821, is reported to have "inspired a little known novelist named Jane Loudon Webb to write a book called 'The Mummy'." (Tour Egypt, 2013, p.1) The book had as its feature a mummy returning to life full of revenge and threatening to strangle the heroes in Loudon's book.

A Scientific Study