The Curse of the Pharaohs' Tombs

by Harrison Paul

  The manuscript upon which Ember had been working was apparently entitled: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. It is said that privately Ember was a firm believer in the curse of the pharaohs. Ember was in fact credited by Egyptologists with having definitively established, for the first time, the common origin of the Egyptian and Israelite tongues. Physicians at the West Baltimore General Hospital where he died said that when Ember was told of the loss of his family and the manuscript, he gave up the will to live. A few days later, the Mayor of Baltimore, Howard W. Jackson, after an investigation, exonerated firemen of charges of tardiness in reaching the fire.

  Richard Bethell was Howard Carter’s secretary and the first person after Howard Carter to set foot inside the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Bethell died on 15 November 1929, having been found in his bed at Mayfair’s exclusive Bath Club. It was claimed that prior to his sudden death, he had been a healthy man and that he had died of a coronary thrombosis. Despite the assertions of others, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the allegation that he was suffocated with a pillow. His father, Lord Westbury, committed suicide in London on 21 February 1930. It was reported in the press that ‘mortal fear of the curse of the pharaohs against all who disturb their eternal rest’ drove him to his death. The elderly Lord leapt from a window of his seventh floor flat in St James’ Court. He left behind in his room a black-edged note stating: ‘I really cannot stand any more horrors’. Also found in his room were countless exquisite relics of Egypt. A further sinister occurrence is attached to this death, as on 25 February 1930, as Lord Westbury’s funeral cortège moved through London towards the crematorium at Golders Green, the hearse containing the Lord’s body knocked down and killed eight-year-old Joseph Greer in a street close to the child’s Battersea home. There were several vehicles in the cortège, yet it was the hearse containing the body of an alleged victim of the curse that struck and killed the poor boy.

  Another to die was radiologist Archibald Douglas Reid: he had Xrayed the body of King Tutankhamun before it was moved to the museum of Cairo. The day after he carried out this task he fell sick and was sent back to England. It was said he exhibited signs of exhaustion – which he strongly refuted – but he died three days later on 17 January 1924. Not long after Carnarvon’s demise, another archaeologist, Arthur Cruttenden Mace, a leading member of the expedition, fell into a coma at the Hotel Continental after complaining of tiredness. It has been claimed that he exhibited symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Mace was forced to retire from Egyptian archaeological work and returned to London where he died in 1928. His illness was said to have left the expedition medical expert and local doctors baffled.

  In the years that followed, deaths and incidents continued. Mohammed Ibrahim, Egypt’s Director of Antiquities, opposed the release of treasures from the tomb so that they could be exhibited in Paris in 1966. It was Ibrahim’s responsibility to sign the contract releasing the artifacts, but he did not want to do so. It is known that Ibrahim pleaded with the Egyptian authorities to keep the relics in Cairo. One of his reasons for the request was that for many months he had suffered terrifying nightmares of a painful and agonising death should he allow them to leave the country. In one last effort to prevent the release of the items, a desperate Ibrahim admitted he believed that ill fortune would befall many if the artifacts left their home in Egypt. The authorities dismissed this as nonsense. A distraught Ibrahim left that final meeting with the government officials and, according to several eyewitnesses, he stepped out into a clear road. There was no visible traffic and no sound of any vehicle approaching; it was a bright, clear sunny day. Within moments, the sound of a car was heard and bystanders saw Ibrahim struck down by a vehicle that killed him instantly. His death was attributed to him being emotionally distraught and not concentrating on the road, but witnesses claim otherwise.

  In 1969 Richard Adamson, said to be the last surviving member of the original 1923 expedition, left an interesting testimony. Adamson was vocally dismissive of the talk of any curse and often enjoyed the limelight, talking to the press about how he had guarded the tomb of King Tutankhamun and nothing strange ever happened. It is said that on one occasion he spoke out against the curse, and within 24 hours his wife died. Later, after he again talked of the matter, his son suffered a broken back in an aircraft crash. Eventually, after another public outburst in defiance against the curse in an interview on British television, he left the television studios and called a taxi. During that journey the taxi was involved in an accident. Adamson was thrown from the vehicle when it crashed, and an oncoming lorry managed to swerve to avoid hitting Adamson, apparently missing his head by a few inches. Adamson was taken to hospital suffering from fractures and bruises. It was then that he was forced to admit: ‘Until now I refused to believe that my family’s misfortunes had anything to do with the curse. But now I am not so sure.’

  Dr Gamal Mehrez, Ibrahim’s successor in Cairo as Egypt’s Director of Antiquities, died on 4 February 1972. Unlike his predecessor, he scoffed at and poured scorn on the legend of a curse; he often stated that his entire life had been spent working in Egyptology and that the deaths and misfortune associated with the curse were ‘pure coincidence’. He died of a brain haemorrhage while experts packed priceless Egyptian relics into an RAF plane for transport to England. Tragedy then struck the crew members of the aircraft. When Flight Lieutenant Rick Laurie died of a heart attack in 1976, his wife is said to have declared: ‘It’s the curse of Tutankhamun – the curse has killed him.’A friend of the family said that Rick Laurie had been haunted by worry that he carried the curse and feared for his life. He had been a fit and healthy man, and his heart attack came out of the blue and shocked everyone. Another serviceman, flight engineer Ken Parkinson, suffered a heart attack every year, at the same time as the flight aboard the Britannia aircraft which brought the treasures to England, until a final fatal attack killed him in 1978. It should be noted that before the Tutankhamun mission, both of these service personnel had undergone medicals and been pronounced fit by military doctors. A somewhat more apocryphal tale relating to the same flight concerns the Chief Technical Officer, Ian Lansdown, who is said to have kicked the crate that contained the death mask of the boy king. ‘I’ve just kicked the most expensive thing in the world,’ he is said to have quipped. On disembarking from the aircraft a ladder he was using mysteriously broke, and in the fall he broke the leg with which he had kicked the crate. Flight Lieutenant Jim Webb, who was also aboard the aircraft, lost everything he owned after a fire devastated his home. One of the stewards, Brian Rounsfall, is said to have admitted playing cards on the crate containing artifacts, generally thought to be the crate housing the death mask or sarcophagus, during the flight to England. He later suffered two heart attacks. Finally, a woman officer on board the plane later had to leave the RAF after undergoing a serious medical operation.

  I contacted the RAF to make formal enquiries about the stories relating to the plane crew. Perhaps understandably, the response was ‘no comment’. Are all these incidents – and there are many more that can be associated with them – merely coincidences, as the Establishment would prefer us to believe? Or could there really be some unnatural force at work? Skeptics virtually always use Howard Carter as an example in dismissing the curse of King Tutankhamun. Carter lived on for many years after Carnarvon and others were seemingly struck down. Yet we now know that Carter, despite claims to the contrary, did suffer nightmares and terrors relating to Anubis, and it is further claimed that he physically saw several Anubis-like black desert dogs in the Egyptian sands during later archaeological work. To this day black dogs are still viewed as spectral dogs, devil dogs or hell hounds, and in some religions they are believed to be the devil masquerading in animal form. As we know, ancient Egyptians believed the black dog or jackal, Anubis, was the patron of mummification and guardian of the path through the underworld. Prayers to the god Anubis can be found carved in most ancient Egyptian tombs. Anubis is generally portrayed as a man with t
he head of a dog/jackal; the head is black and represents his position as god of the dead. None of this was alien to Carter or Carnarvon, yet both, particularly in the latter stages of their lives, spoke of seeing and apparently fearing an encounter with Anubis.

  Chapter 3

  The Curse of the London Mummy

  The curse of the mummy is undoubtedly the most popular and gripping tale emanating from Egypt, and it has existed for well over a century. In 1821 an exhibition opened in London’s Piccadilly at a property built in 1812 and known as the Egyptian Hall, a private museum of natural history. The exhibition opened on 1 May 1821 and was unique, the first of its sort in Europe: a reconstruction of an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb originally discovered in 1818 by former circus strongman and later Egyptian excavator, Giovanni Belzoni. Before a crowd of hundreds, Belzoni appeared wrapped entirely from head to foot in bandages. Some 2,000 visitors flocked to the exhibition on its opening day, most amazed by the artifacts (some authentic, some created) that were on display, including two genuine mummies.

  In August 1821, a new artifact was added to the display. It was a white alabaster sarcophagus, measuring ten feet in length and bearing ornate inscriptions and hieroglyphs. The sarcophagus was translucent when lit from behind, enhancing the remarkable inscriptions. On the base of the coffin, where the pharaoh’s body would lie, was a fulllength depiction of a goddess (later found to be the goddess Mut). This was no ordinary find, and it was later discovered that the sarcophagus belonged to none other than 19th Dynasty ruler Sethos (Seti I). Seti I had succeeded his father Ramesses I in 1291 BC, and in turn was succeeded in 1278 BC by his own son, Ramesses II, Egypt’s most famous ruler, commonly referred to as ‘Ramesses the Great’. The inscription on the side of the object portrayed Seti’s journey to the underworld – The Book of the Gates, which is discussed elsewhere. It is worth noting that there was no sinister undertone or mention of supernatural curses attached or associated with the exhibition, a clear indication that such matters were introduced or recognised at a much later date.

  It was not until 1894 that a denouncer of Egypt’s corrupt and backward ways, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, created a fictional mummy exacting the revenge of a Victorian black magician in his short story ‘Lot No. 249’, first published in Harper’s. Thereafter, a veritable library of authors repeated, enhanced and added various supernatural twists to the tale.

  In 1932, legendary actor Boris Karloff played the first ever onscreen mummy, becoming the revived Egyptian priest Imhotep in the now classic film The Mummy. In more recent times, during the filming of television series Downton Abbey at Highclere Castle, the ancestral home of the Carnarvon family, it was claimed by actress Shirley MacLaine, a woman who believes in reincarnation and thinks that her pet dog Terry (a rat terrier) is a reincarnation of Anubis, saw ghostly figures and pictures inexplicably fall from the walls of the castle during filming of the show. MacLaine believed these were spirits associated with Egyptian King Tutankhamun. She inaccurately stated: ‘They had the tomb of King Tut in the basement’.

  Thus we come to the story of exhibit BM22542 – the unique reference number given to the inner coffin lid (more commonly referred to as the mummy board) by the British Museum. The British Museum has been open to the public since 15 January 1759, although it was established in 1753. Today it has over seven million artifacts on display. The exhibit to which we refer was originally donated to the museum on behalf of Mr Arthur Wheeler by Mrs Warwick Hunt, of Holland Park, London, in July 1889. Its provenance has never truly been established, but it is perhaps one of the most infamous and written about artifacts on display in the Egyptian Room. It is widely believed across the world to be the mummy board of the priestess of Amen-Ra, said to have lived some 1,500 years before Christ. The board itself measures roughly 5 feet 4 inches in length. On her death, the remains of the priestess were mummified and placed in an ornate wooden coffin that was buried deep within a vault in Luxor, Egypt, just off the banks of the River Nile.

  To gain a greater understanding of the curse that is said to be associated with the object, we must first identify Amen-Ra. Records show that Amen was one of the gods who was well known to Egyptians in very early times: his name can be found within the pyramid texts. The name ‘Amen’ means ‘that which cannot be seen’ or ‘hidden’. In the hymns to Amen, his name can also be translated to mean: ‘hidden to his children’, or ‘hidden to gods and men’. As a Thebes deity he was regarded as the god of the wind before becoming known as the chief of gods. He is often considered to be the king of gods. It is said that the term ‘hidden’ refers to the setting sun at the end of the day, becoming hidden to mortals. As was often the case in Egyptian religion, the gods were often combined with other deities, to satisfy as many worshippers as possible. Amen’s absolute power came from him being combined with the sun god Ra. Ra was acknowledged to be the father of all living things, the physical father. If you look more closely at the use of the term Ra when associated with Amen, you can see that Amen was the god who could not be seen by mortal eyes, and the attributes applied to him were eternal – he was a powerful god. Controversially, some suggest that the word ‘Amen’, said after Christian prayer, refers to this god, and that the Vatican Church, wishing to pay tribute to him, documented his life and transformed it into their own history of religion, calling it the Bible, with Jesus Christ as the central figure. It is claimed that the life of Jesus was based on that of Ra, who existed some 3,000 years earlier. However, in this discussion our focus is on the mummy board and not the foundation of religion, though Amen-Ra was without doubt a highly respected god.

  The board itself is decorated with the painted face of a woman. It is described by the eminent Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge, in his work The Mummy: A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology, as being ‘decorated with an elaborate pectotal, figures of the gods, sacred symbols of Osiris and Isis, and at the foot, between crowned uraei, is a cartouche containing the prenomen and nomen of Amenhetep I, Tcheserkara Amenhetep, one of the earliest kings of the XVIII dynasty, and a great benefactor of the priesthood of Amen at Thebes’. The story of how the board arrived in Britain is important, since much has been made of this and it forms the infrastructure of the curse itself.

  An Oxford graduate, published author, horse breeder, society gentleman and amateur archaeologist and friend of the rival Egyptologists Ernest Wallis Budge and William Flinders Petrie, named Thomas Douglas Murray (1841–1911), was one of a group of four wealthy young Englishmen who had been visiting excavation sites at Luxor since 1866. In 1899 the group, who were in Luxor, were offered and invited to buy an exquisite mummy case that was said to contain the remains of a princess of Amen-Ra. Having examined it, each of the group wanted to independently own the object. Each argued his case and gave reasons why it should be his, but no argument was persuasive enough to win the board. The group decided to draw lots to determine who would buy and own it. The man who won (some claim it was Murray, but the story suggests it could not have been) paid several thousand pounds and had the coffin removed to his hotel. Mysterious noises and moaning were heard coming from his room; strange wailing voices that sounded almost hypnotic in tone. A few hours later, the man, who was now seemed preoccupied by his own thoughts, was seen leaving the hotel alone, and later walking out towards the desert. He never returned to the hotel and was never seem again. The following day, Murray was out shooting when he slipped and inadvertently shot himself in the arm. He needed urgent medical attention, so the group tried to get from Thebes to Cairo as quickly as possible. They sailed the Nile, but strong headwinds prevented them from making a swift journey and it was ten days before Murray could get any medical treatment. By that time, gangrene had set in and Murray’s arm had to be amputated. The third man in the foursome found on his return home that his family’s fortune had been lost. Meanwhile, the fourth man was struck down by a severe illness, lost his job and was seemingly reduced to selling matches in the street. It was a harrowing tale indeed, and one that was
sufficient to convince much of the British population that a curse did exist.

  When the mummy board eventually arrived in London, its owner, who believed it to house a malevolent spirit from another world, attempted to exorcise the object and house. A well-known authority on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky, was requested to visit the premises. Within moments of arriving at the house, Blavatsky gripped her chest and was forced to sit down as she was seized with a shivering fit. She could sense the evil within and she wandered through every room in the house in an attempt to locate the source. In the attic she found the mummy board and identified it as the home of the evil entity. In terror, the owner asked her to carry out an exorcism, to which Blavatsky retorted: ‘There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever. Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid of this evil as soon as possible’.

  This tale of the visit of Madame Blavatsky is extraordinary, as she died from influenza in 1891, which casts doubt on other elements of the story. There is however, a further twist that can be revealed here for the very first time. An English medium was involved in the episode. This was Robert James Lees, who was a Leicester born, London-based spiritualist medium and a firm believer in reincarnation. In private communications he stated that he believed in the curse of the Egyptian pharaohs, and had once visited a certain well-known London home in Portland Place and been asked to purge a malevolent Egyptian spirit that resided in a coffin-like artifact stored there. He had neither the power nor authority to do this, so advised the owner to be rid of the casket with all haste! Whether it was the mummy board of Amen-Ra or another artifact is not known. Lees, despite being accused of being a fantasist, has never once been accused of fraud, unusual in skeptical Victorian society, where mediums were often viewed as illicit moneymaking fraudsters. Lees was outspoken in his beliefs and infamously claimed to know the identity of Victorian London’s Jack the Ripper: a well-known physician and private surgeon to none other than HM Queen Victoria. As questionable as such a claim seems, some documentary evidence can support his belief.