Among the unsolved mysteries of the world, Tutankhamun's curse is one of the most eerie. After the archaeologists opened Tutankhamun's mausoleum, more than 20 people associated with the expedition died inexplicably. After the foreign media reported on this incident, it was called the "Curse of Tutankhamundi", is this true?
There is no fame in life, and it is famous in the world after death
Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC), the twelfth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, was the son of the rebellious pharaoh Akhenaten.
The birth mother was a concubine named Kiya from Arkandaron, whose mummy may have been the mummy of a young female woman in the KV35 tomb of the Valley of the Kings. In order to maintain the blood of the gods, to maintain the purity of the bloodline, in ancient Egypt, brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, mother and child... Both can be intermarried. In ancient Egyptian law, it was stipulated that if a pharaoh wanted to have a legitimate throne, he had to marry the eldest daughter of the previous pharaoh. Tutankhamun is a young prince who suffers from a variety of genetic diseases due to intermarriage between close relatives.
Tutankhamun ascended the throne at the age of 9 and died at the age of 19. His mausoleum is very special, not buried in the pyramid of Hongda like other pharaohs, and died too early before the pyramid was completed, and after his death, the prime minister who shared power with him, Ayi, looked at his pyramid again. As a result, Tutankhamun was squeezed out of the pyramid and buried underground. The entrance to Tutankhamun's mausoleum is under the mausoleum of the famous pharaoh Ramses VI, so Tutankhamun's mausoleum has never been found. Almost all of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs' tombs buried in the Valley of the Kings have been looted, and only Tutankhamun's mausoleum has survived for more than 3,000 years and is still intact.
Major archaeological discoveries
In 1902, Davis, an American amateur archaeologist, carried out excavations in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It took years for the dude to dig a small pit in the Valley of the Kings. There were a large number of crock pots scattered with linen, broken clay stamps, sacks, wood chips, dried flowers and a large number of broken bottles.
The objects were sent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it was identified that some of them were mummified tools, with Tutankhamun's name inscribed on both mud stamps and linen fragments. Later, Davis found a small simple mausoleum nearby, and he thought that Tutankhamun's mausoleum must have been stolen, so he packed it up and went back to the United States to hold a touring exhibition.
Count Kanavon, who was recuperating in Egypt, heard about this and proceeded with the excavation by Davis. To this end, he specially invited the British archaeologist Carter to lead the entire excavation. Comrade Carter led a group of workers to dig and plan, and sure enough, in less than five months, the mausoleum was opened.
On February 16, 1923, Carter personally opened the entrance to the last burial chamber of the mausoleum, and what he saw was a room full of dazzling golden light. A chariot made of gold is placed in the corner of the tomb, and all the places except outside the tomb are filled with furniture, utensils, boxes and other utensils, including the treasure house of the tomb owner. Each artifact in the tomb is decorated with gold, silver, beads and jade. Two life-size ebony gilded statues were also found in the burial chamber, which scholars believe were tutankhamun's image.
The third coffin is made of 110.9 kilograms of gold, while the gold mask covering the mummy weighs 10.23 kilograms. Several inscriptions were also found in the tomb, one of which read: "Whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh, death will come upon him." "Whoever enters this grave with an impure heart, I will strangle him by the neck like a bird." The excavation work lasted another 5 years, the cleanup took 8 years, and it took 8 years to sort out more than 5,000 cultural relics.
The patron of archaeology, Count Carnavon, was a shrewd businessman who certainly knew how to monetize. Archaeology was only one of his hobbies, and as soon as the mausoleum was excavated, the count was thinking about developing business opportunities in it. He immediately sold exclusive coverage of the mausoleum excavations to the British newspaper Times for £5,000.
Curse or lie
The first victim under Tutankhamun's curse was lord Kanavon. Upon returning from the mausoleum, Kanafon was scurvy from a mosquito bite and the condition deteriorated rapidly until his death in the early hours of April 15, 1923. After Lord Carnavon's death, the nurses who cared for him died suddenly, and the people involved in the opening of the mausoleum died one after another.
American railroad magnate George Jergod died of fever the day after the visit, and Professor Zibert Deli, the first to undo the shroud and use X-ray perspective to view the mummy of Pharaoh Tankamon, only took a few X-rays and started a high fever, and his body weakened sharply. He had to return to London with illness and died the following year.
This is called the curse of Tutankhamun. The truth is that this is actually a battle between several British newspapers. The Times monopolized exclusive coverage, much to the displeasure of several other major British newspapers. It just so happened that Carnafon died of sepsis caused by a mosquito bite during the archaeological process, and in order to seize the market, some lace news was fabricated.
In the tomb of the pharaoh, there are a large number of funerary plants, food, these things after 3000 years of burial, produced a large number of fungi, the scientists who first entered the mausoleum have no experience, many people do not have any protective measures, their own resistance is not strong, it is easy to be infected by fungi to cause diseases.
Take the patron Count Carnavon as an example, his health in Egypt was not too good, before the beginning of archaeology was still recuperating, such a small physique, should go to nature to breathe some fresh air, nothing to go to the grave full of fungi, how can the body not be sick. It is said that the most deserving disease was Professor Carter, who presided over the archaeological work, but he lived for another 17 years and did not die of lymphoma until 1939. Only one member of the archaeological team quit halfway through due to illness, and everyone else was unharmed. At the time of the opening of the coffin, many Egyptian officials were present, and in the next three months, more than twelve thousand people entered the mausoleum to visit, and they all lived well...
Archaeologist Lepsius discovered 30 pyramids in Egypt and worked in mausoleums and pyramids for a long time, neither cursed nor harmed by viruses or fungi. In 1933, the Egyptologist George Standorf traced the sources of newspaper news and proved that the "curse of the pharaoh" was purely an anecdote created by the press to expand sales.
If you think about it, if the curse is really so magical, the tombs of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs will not be "visited" by tomb robbers.
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