So last night I got hooked on this Tutankhamun curse thing after watching some late-night documentary. Grabbed my laptop around midnight thinking I’d just skim a bit. Big mistake.
Digging Into the Tomb Stuff
Started with Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery. Pictures of that tomb entrance gave me goosebumps – tiny doorway buried under sand for 3,000 years. Bookmarking excavation photos when my stupid parrot knocked over a coffee mug. Spent twenty minutes wiping down my keyboard thinking “Well that’s freaky timing.”
Got deeper into the Carnarvon story – dude funding the dig dropped dead months after entering. Newspapers went nuts:
- NY Times screaming “PHARAOH’S CURSE KILLS LORD”
- London Illustrated News sketching horror scenes
- Even Conan Doyle (Sherlock guy!) bought the curse theory
When Things Got Weird
Found a document claiming Carter’s canary got eaten by a cobra on opening day. Grabbed my phone to check – 3:17am. Wind howled outside and I jumped at my own shadow. That’s when my partner sleepily asked why I was reading “Ancient Egyptian Death Magic” at this hour. Awkward.
Pushed further into the deaths:
- Carnarvon’s dog supposedly howled and died same time in England
- Random people tangentially related croaking for years after
My old floorboards creaked right then. I legit shut my laptop. Nonsensical? Sure. Spooky? Absolutely.
The Skeptic Shift
Next morning (with daylight), dug into actual records. Turns out Carter lived 16 more years! Died at 64 – pretty normal back then. Most “cursed” team members made it to like 70+.
Researched the tomb’s contents properly. Got floored by real horrors:
- Two tiny coffins holding Tut’s stillborn daughters
- His mummy missing its heart – ripped out during embalming
Way gloomier than any supernatural crap.
Explaining the Spooky Stuff
Finally cracked the curse hype. Combination of:
- Sensationalist press needing headlines
- Ancient mold spores in unventilated tomb air
- Massive confirmation bias linking unrelated deaths
Kinda mad at how the legit tragic story – teenage king dead with his babies – got buried under ghost stories. Found records showing Carter himself called curse tales “dumb fiction” while reporters ignored him.
Wrapped up at 11pm tonight shaking my head. Power of storytelling beat facts for 100 years. Crazy how we’d rather imagine boogeymen than accept ancient workplaces had poor ventilation. Now eating pizza while scheduling furnace maintenance – no way I’m dying from mold at home next week.
