The curse of the pharaohs, also called the mummy's curse or the Curse of King Tut, is a curse said to be placed on anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse is claimed to bring bad luck, illness, or even death. It affects everyone, whether they are thieves or archaeologists. Since the middle of the 20th century, many writers and documentaries have suggested that the curse might have real causes that science can explain, such as bacteria, fungi, or radiation. However, the stories about Egyptian curses began in European cultures and changed over time. They shifted from being about magic to being about science. These stories were used to warn people not to disturb the dead, but now they are used for entertainment in horror movies. This shows that Egyptian curses are more about culture than science.
Sometimes, real ancient curses are found inside or on the outside of a tomb. For example, in the mastaba of Khentika Ikhekhi from the 6th Dynasty at Saqqara, there are curses. These were meant to protect the tomb and keep its rituals pure, not to warn robbers. Stories about curses existed in the 19th century, but they became more common after Howard Carter found the tomb of Tutankhamun. However, no curse was found written in the Pharaoh's tomb. The evidence for curses related to Tutankhamun is very weak. Donald B. Redford said it was "pure nonsense."
Tomb curses
Tomb curses are very uncommon, possibly because people in ancient times thought it was too dangerous or unthinkable to write about such things. These curses are most often found in private tombs from the Old Kingdom period. In the tomb of Ankhtifi (9–10th dynasty), there is a warning that says: "If any ruler harms this coffin, Hemen (a local god) will refuse to accept any offerings, and the ruler’s heir will not inherit anything." In the tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi (6th dynasty), an inscription reads: "Anyone who enters this tomb and is unclean will face judgment. I will seize their neck like a bird and fill them with fear."
The only known curse from a pharaoh’s tomb in the Old Kingdom was found in the Pyramid of Pepi I. A passage from the Pyramid Texts warns: "Anyone who touches this pyramid or disrupts the tomb of Pepi and his spirit will face consequences. Nephthys will cause them suffering in every place of Geb. Their case has been judged by the Ennead, and they will have nothing—no home, no possessions. They will be cursed and forced to eat their own body."
Curses from after the Old Kingdom era are less frequent but often harsher. Some call on the anger of Thoth or the destruction caused by Sekhemet. Zahi Hawass mentions a later curse that says: "Those who disturb a Pharaoh’s rest are cursed. Anyone who breaks the seal of this tomb will suffer death from a disease that no doctor can cure."
Modern accounts
Hieroglyphs were not understood until the early 1800s, so stories about curses before this time were likely seen as bad luck connected to handling mummies and other items from tombs. In 1699, Louis Penicher wrote about a Polish traveler who bought two mummies in Alexandria and traveled by sea with them. The traveler saw strange ghost-like figures and faced rough seas until the mummies were thrown overboard.
Zahi Hawass, an archaeologist, shared that when he was young, he moved artifacts from a Greco-Roman site. He said his cousin died that day, his uncle died one year later, and his aunt died three years after that. Later, when he explored tombs at Giza, he saw a warning carved in stone: "Those who harm this tomb or destroy it may face dangers from crocodiles in water, snakes on land, hippos in water, and scorpions on land." Though Hawass said he was not superstitious, he avoided disturbing mummies. However, he later helped move two child mummies to a museum and later dreamed of the children until the mummy of their father was placed with them in the museum.
The idea of a mummy coming back to life, a common theme in mummy stories, first appeared in The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, a book mixing science fiction and horror written by Jane C. Loudon and published anonymously in 1827. In 1869, Louisa May Alcott was believed to have created the first complete "mummy curse" story in Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy's Curse. However, two earlier stories—The Mummy’s Soul (1862) and After Three Thousand Years (1868)—were later found to have similar plots where a female mummy seeks revenge on a man who disturbed her tomb. Jasmine Day suggests that these stories may show early ideas about women’s rights, linking the harm done to tombs with harm done to women. Since these stories are older than Alcott’s, it is possible that even earlier stories about mummy curses may still exist but have not yet been found.
Opening of Tutankhamun's tomb
The belief in a curse became widely known after several people connected to Howard Carter's team and other important visitors to Tutankhamun's tomb died shortly after the tomb was opened in 1922. Howard Carter and his team discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) in 1922, marking the start of modern Egyptology.
James Henry Breasted, a well-known Egyptologist, worked with Carter after the tomb was opened. He described an event where Carter sent a messenger to his home. As the messenger approached, he heard a faint, human-like cry. When he reached the entrance, he found a cobra in a birdcage. The cobra, a symbol of the Egyptian monarchy, had killed Carter's canary. This event led to local rumors about a curse. Arthur Weigall, a former Egyptian government official, explained that people believed the cobra represented the Royal Cobra, a symbol worn by the king to strike enemies. This happened on the same day the tomb was opened. The New York Times reported this event on December 22, 1922.
The first death linked to the tomb was that of Lord Carnarvon, who funded the excavation. He was bitten by a mosquito and accidentally cut the bite while shaving. The wound became infected, leading to blood poisoning. Two weeks before Carnarvon died, Marie Corelli wrote a letter in the New York World magazine, quoting an old book that claimed "dire punishment" would follow anyone who entered a sealed tomb. This led to media reports about a curse, even though no curse was found in the tomb. Benito Mussolini, a leader who had once accepted an Egyptian mummy as a gift, ordered the mummy to be removed from his home.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a spiritualist, suggested that Carnarvon's death was caused by "elementals" created by Tutankhamun's priests to guard the tomb. This idea increased media interest. Arthur Weigall reported that six weeks before Carnarvon's death, he saw the Earl laughing and joking as he entered the tomb and told a reporter, "I give him six weeks to live." An autopsy of Tutankhamun's body by Dr. Derry found a healed wound on his cheek, but it was unclear if this matched the mosquito bite that caused Carnarvon's death.
A study by The Lancet concluded that Carnarvon's death was likely unrelated to the tomb. The report noted that many others had entered the tomb without harm. The cause of Carnarvon's death was reported as "pneumonia following erysipelas," a skin infection that spread to his lungs. The Lancet also stated that Carnarvon had a history of frequent lung infections, making his immune system weak.
In 1925, anthropologist Henry Field, who worked with Breasted, visited the tomb and recalled that Carter was kind and friendly. He also mentioned that a paperweight given to Carter's friend, Sir Bruce Ingram, was made from a mummified hand with a scarab bracelet. The bracelet had the inscription, "Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water, and pestilence." Soon after receiving the gift, Ingram's house burned down, and later, a flood damaged the rebuilt house.
Howard Carter did not believe in curses, calling them "tommy-rot" and stating that Egyptologists feel respect and awe, not fear, toward ancient tombs. In May 1926, he wrote in his diary about seeing a jackal, similar to Anubis, the guardian of the dead, for the first time in over 35 years of working in the desert. He did not link this sighting to supernatural causes.
Skeptics noted that many people who visited the tomb or helped discover it lived long, healthy lives. A study showed that of the 58 people present when the tomb was opened, only eight died within 12 years. Others, including Howard Carter, who died of lymphoma in 1939, and Lady Evelyn Herbert, Lord Carnarvon's daughter, who lived until 1980, remained alive.
Some researchers suggested that toxic spores from the fungus Aspergillus flavus, which may have contributed to deaths after a 1973 tomb opening in Poland, could also have been linked to deaths connected to Tutankhamun's tomb, such as those of Lord Carnarvon, George Jay Gould, and Arthur Mace. However, this link has been disputed, especially in Carnarvon's case.
The tomb of Tutankhamun was opened on November 29, 1922.
Popular culture
The Universal horror films The Mummy (1932), The Mummy's Hand (1940), and the later films that follow The Mummy's Hand include mentions of a curse that predicts death for anyone who enters tombs.