Curse of the pharaohs

[1] There are occasional instances of genuine ancient curses appearing inside or on the façade of a tomb, as in the case of the mastaba of Khentika Ikhekhi of the 6th Dynasty at Saqqara.

[4] The tomb of Ankhtifi (9–10th dynasty) contains the warning: "any ruler who... shall do evil or wickedness to this coffin... may Hemen ([a local deity]) not accept any goods he offers, and may his heir not inherit".

"[6] Hieroglyphs were not deciphered until the early 19th century, so reports of curses before this are simply perceived bad luck associated with the handling of mummies and other artifacts from tombs.

[2] Zahi Hawass recalled that, as a young archaeologist excavating at Kom Abu Billo, he had to transport several artifacts from the Greco-Roman site.

: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, an early work combining science fiction and horror, written by Jane C. Loudon and published anonymously in 1827.

The Anonymous and Austin stories predate Alcott's piece, raising the possibility that even earlier "lost" mummy curse prototype fiction awaits rediscovery.

[9] The belief in a curse was brought to many people's attention due to the deaths of a few members of Howard Carter's team and other prominent visitors to the tomb shortly thereafter.

Two weeks before Carnarvon died, Marie Corelli wrote an imaginative letter that was published in the New York World magazine, in which she quoted an obscure book that confidently asserted that "dire punishment" would follow any intrusion into a sealed tomb.

[13] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and spiritualist, suggested that Lord Carnarvon's death had been caused by "elementals" created by Tutankhamun's priests to guard the royal tomb, and this further fueled the media interest.

[16] A study of documents and scholarly sources led The Lancet to conclude it unlikely that Carnarvon's death had anything to do with Tutankhamun's tomb, refuting another theory that exposure to toxic fungi (mycotoxins) had contributed to his demise.

He also reported how a paperweight given to Carter's friend Sir Bruce Ingram was composed of a mummified hand with its wrist adorned with a scarab bracelet marked with, "Cursed be he who moves my body.

[18] Howard Carter was entirely skeptical of such curses,[19] dismissing them as 'tommy-rot' and commenting that "the sentiment of the Egyptologist ... is not one of fear, but of respect and awe ... entirely opposed to foolish superstitions".

[20] In May 1926 he reported in his diary a sighting of a jackal of the same type as Anubis, the guardian of the dead, for the first time in over thirty-five years of working in the desert, although he did not attribute this to supernatural causes.

[23][24] The last survivors included Lady Evelyn Herbert, Lord Carnarvon's daughter, who was among the first people to enter the tomb after its discovery in November 1922, who lived for a further 57 years and died in 1980,[25] and American archaeologist J.O.