Curses Linked To Graves, Mummies & Artifacts

[Mighty_Emperor]

I couldn't find a general thread on the Mummy's Curse so here it is.

2004-05-24 - Wireless Flash Weird News

The Curse Of The Mummy Ride



ORLANDO, Fla. (Wireless Flash) -- The designers of a new indoor roller coaster based on Brendan Fraser's "Mummy" movies may have tempted fate a bit too much when they inscribed the walls of the ride's faux catacombs with real Egyptian curses.

At least, that's how Project Director Mike Hightower felt before the "Revenge of the Mummy" ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, was unveiled last week.

Hightower oversaw technical details on the attraction and admits "working out all the bugs was not a slam dunk" -- especially developing a realistic 6 ft. 8 robotic version of the Mummy.

He says when he learned designers were carving hieroglyphics of actual Egyptian curses into the walls, he thought, "Why are you putting this in? What if there's something real about [the curse?]"

"After living through what I was living through over the last two-to-three months, I was believing it," he laughs.

Luckily, Hightower has gotten over his fear of the Mummy's curse -- not in the least because visitors to the ride have been raving about it.

http://www.ncbuy.com/news/2004-05-24/1009681.html

A bit of a non-story but we'll just have to await the first deaths............

Emps

 

[_Lizard23_]

Dzzz! Bit of an advert more like.

Incidentally, it seems to be a common folk 'belief' that the mere words of things like curses and in/evocations have some sort of inherent power ... the plot of a thousand horror movies : but it appears to me that anyone who actually subscribes to a particular belief system will tell you that the power lies elsewhere : that the bread and wine doesn't transubstantiate into the body and blood for Joe Public, but only when the ordained priest performs the mass, or that the demon will only show for the trained solomonic magician and not the high school kid who just picked up a copy of the goetia ......

 

[Daftbugger1]

I've posted this elsewhere, but I think it fits better here

I was under the impression that it was a story of the curse made up by the Daily Mail as Howard Carter had sold exclusive rights to The Times and they were trying to cash in on the story.

Some people have been very sick indeed after visiting King Tuts tomb, but it is a very rare effect from breathing in a type of fungus.

Don't you love the Discovery Channel!

 

[KeyserXSoze]

Curse of Tutankhamun

http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_entertainment.asp?id=49605

'Pharaohs' Curse' Released During Tutankhamun Scan?

Friday, January 07, 2005 9:47:44 AM ET

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who supervised the first CT scan of the mummy of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun this week, said the experience suggested it might be unwise to write off the legendary "curse of the pharaohs."

The CT, or computed tomography, scan produced three-dimensional images X-ray of the boy pharaoh's remains.

"I cannot dismiss the legend of the curse because today many things happened. We almost had an accident in a car, the wind blew up in the Valley of the Kings and the computer of the CT scan was completely stopped for two hours," Hawass said in videotaped remarks released by his office on Friday.

An Egyptian team carried out the CT scan in the Valley of the Kings near the southern town of Luxor on Wednesday evening in an attempt to find out how Tutankhamun died -- one of the abiding mysteries in the history of ancient Egypt.

It will take about three weeks for experts to analyse them.

It was only the fourth time that the mummified body of the king has been examined in detail since archaeologist Howard Carter found his tomb intact in the valley in 1922, in one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries of all time.

Archaeologists last opened the coffin in 1968, when an X-ray revealed a chip of bone in his skull. That fuelled speculation that a blow to the head had killed the king, whose high priest and army commander have been singled out as chief suspects.

Tutankhamun ruled during a troubled and confusing period in Egyptian history, starting shortly after the death of the monotheist heretic pharaoh Akhenaten in 1362 BC, who may have been his father. He died just as he was reaching adulthood.

Mystery has surrounded Tutankhamun ever since 1922. Lord Carnarvon, Carter's sponsor and among the first to enter the tomb, died shortly afterwards from an infected mosquito bite.

Newspapers at the time said Carter had unleashed a pharaonic curse which killed Carnarvon and others linked to the discovery.

Scientists have in the past suggested that a disease lying dormant in the tomb may have killed the British aristocrat.

Hawass, chairman of the Egyptian government's Supreme Council for Antiquities, said the mummy was in very poor condition because of the tools Carter used to prise off the golden mask, one of the best known treasures found in the tomb.

The mummy has remained inside the tomb while all the funerary objects have gone to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

"The mummy needs preservation. We need to keep the temperature inside the sarcophagus (stable) and also restore the golden mask," Hawass said.

Hawass, well known around the world for his enthusiastic television appearances in documentaries on ancient Egypt, has previously spoken about spooky experiences he has had while excavating tombs and taking mummies out of sarcophagi.

"I think we should still believe in the curse of the pharaohs," he said from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Pharaoh's Curse (& Reg. Mummies Ain't Real Chummy Either

Really thrilled to have discovered this topic and I've going to have a LOT of stories to post to it. Years ago I completed an unpublished manuscript of "mummy's curse" tales and yarns (all supposedly true) and I'll be parcelling it out here. Now to....dig....it....up.

 

[BIg_Slim]

In my mind writing a curse on a wall in any language if you believe it or not is asking for trouble.
As the great man said "There is more between heaven and earth than we will ever understand".
basicly DONT WISH THIS STUFF ON YOUR ASS!!!!
amen.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Curse

Agreed.

A couple of decades back there was a front-page news story concerning an American Lutheran pastor who'd placed a formal curse against the individual who'd vandalized a tree outside his church.

Horticulturalists afterwards pointed out that the damage to the tree was the result of a naturally-occurring tree disease.

So whom did the Reverend curse....GOD?

 

[rynner2]

Egyptian tomb raider dies from 'curse'
By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin
Last Updated: 2:06am BST 25/08/2007

Legend has it that the royal tombs of ancient Egypt were sealed with monstrous curses against all those who trespassed into the domain of the afterlife.

In the tomb of the boy pharaoh, Tutankhamun, hieroglyphs were said to have spelled out a dreadful end for all those who entered.

Howard Carter, the lead archaeologist who opened the tomb in 1923, wrote that "all sane people should dismiss such inventions with contempt".

But a German man has decided the curse of the mummies is definitely not a myth - and has therefore returned a plundered ancient Egyptian carving which he says has fatally cursed his family.

The relic was stolen three years ago from the Valley of Kings, near Luxor, home to the tombs of dozens of Pharaohs and Egyptian nobles who were buried there some three millennia ago.

The unnamed man decided to take it home to Germany with him as a souvenir of his trip.

It was on his return to Europe that the trouble began, according to an anonymous note that accompanied the carving when it was recently returned to the Egyptian embassy in Berlin.

Instead of enjoying his stolen treasure, the thief was struck down with an inexplicable fatigue and fever, progressing to paralysis, and ultimately death.

Following his demise, the stolen piece was returned to the Egyptians by his stepson, who believed that the thief's torment would not end merely with death.

By returning the carving to its rightful home, Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities said this week, he hoped his stepfather's soul could rest in peace.

The apparent curse is the latest in a long series of bedevilments that have menaced the explorers and plunderers of the Valley of the Kings over the years.

King Tut's "curse" is by far the most famous of those attached to the ancient pharaohs.

The team that excavated his tomb is rumoured to have suffered a bizarre series of unexplained deaths in the months and years after its treasures were uncovered.

Its primary victim was said to be the expedition's main financial backer, George Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon, who was found dead soon after revealing the tomb's still unsurpassed bounty.

His death is now frequently ascribed to blood poisoning rather than a millennia-old curse.

But potential toxins in the tombs, and the hieroglyphic warnings against disturbing the peace of the pharaohs, have perpetuated the mystery.

The antiquities council, which has now received the stolen carving after it was flown back by diplomatic bag from Germany, has formed a committee to study the artefact.

http://tinyurl.com/2y6v86

 

[Kondoru]

What about compiling a list of those involved in the Carter dig who did live long????

I believe one of them was the local boy who was photographed wearing Tutenkhamens jewelry; something that might be regarded as dangerous in many cultures.

 

[ramonmercado]

Not really about the curse, just his granda.

Archaeologists find statue of Tutankhamun's grandad
http://www.physorg.com/news205253514.html
October 2nd, 2010 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
The statue depicts the king sitting on a throne with Amun, the chief deity

Enlarge


A handout picture from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (ESCA) shows a 3,000-year-old statue of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamu, unearthed by archaeologists.

Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed part a 3,000-year-old statue of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamun, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Saturday.

"The statue was found near the northern entrance of Amenhotep III's temple and depicts the king sitting down on a throne with Amun," the chief deity, Hawass said.

The red-granite top half of the statue was discovered at the site of the Amenhotep III's funerary temple in the southern city of Luxor, Hawass said.

The newly-discovered artifact which measures 130 cm (51 inches) in height and 95 cm (37 inches) in width is "fantastic... because of the details of the facial features," Hawass said.

Archaeologists believe the full statue is around three metres (nearly 10 feet) tall.

In recent years, a large quantity of red-granite statue pieces have been uncovered at Amenhotep III's funerary temple at Kom al-Hitan on Luxor's west bank.

Amenhotep III ruled Egypt between 1390 and 1352 BC.

He was almost certainly the grandfather of Tutankhamun, according to the results of DNA tests and computerised tomography (CT) scans on the famed boy king's mummy announced by scientists on February 17.

 

[Analogue Boy]

Legend of the Curse of Tutankhamun's trumpets

Should I have put this rather brilliant item in 'What Music', 'Fortean Headlines', 'General Forteana' or even 'chat'?

Anyway, what we have here is a 1939 recording of someone playing two 3000 year old trumpets (silver and copper) found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Even with the traditional Last Post and hunting riff he's interpreted, it's a brilliantly haunting track of instruments echoing through the centuries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13092827

What is even more interesting is the nugget provided towards the bottom of the article...

As Tutankhamun's trumpet echoes once more, the loss - and return - of such a celebrated artefact is convincing some of Tutankhamun's celebrated curse. Not least the trumpet's apparent ability to summon up war.

Bandsman Tappern had, after all, played the trumpet shortly before World War II broke out. Cairo Museum's Tutankhamun curator claims the trumpet retains "magical powers" and was blown before the first Gulf War, and by a member of staff the week before the Egyptian uprising.

I've never even heard of this before - Talk about a blast from the past :shock:

 

[EnolaGaia]

That's a new one on me, too. I've seen lots of talk about the purported curse associated with opening Tutankhamun's tomb. This is the first I've heard of a purported curse associated with the trumpets.

 

[_Lizard23_]

"Ghost Music" 1.30pm Tuesday 19th April 2010 on Radio 4 will feature an article on Tutankhamun's trumpets.

 

[rynner2]

People can be so silly!

It's not a trumpet at all - it's a device for giving the pharoah an enema!

 

[rev_dino]

Someone really needs to tell them to stop blowing that bloody trumpet!

 

[OldTimeRadio]

People can be so silly!

It's not a trumpet at all - it's a device for giving the pharoah an enema!

Rynner, the Pharaoh's rectal specialist proudly bore the title "Shepherd of the Royal Anus." I just thought you'd like to know that.

 

[rynner2]

Rynner, the Pharaoh's rectal specialist proudly bore the title "Shepherd of the Royal Anus." I just thought you'd like to know that.

I think that was one of the vague amorphous factoids floating about in the darker corners of my memory banks! 8)

(The last few years I could have used a Shepherd myself... )

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Can anyone here tell me if it's possible to save this wonderful BBC audio clip? I can play it but not download it, and I'd very much like a permanent copy.

 

[soaringspirit]

Well i don't know about any curse, however I think it's pretty neat neat to hear the trumpets played. They sounded a bit more modern than I expected.

 

[Analogue Boy]

When I was a kid there used to be this lady that occasionally appeared on TV in an evening dress who played anything from watering cans to a garden hose. Apparently she could get a note out of anything but she used a trumpet mouthpiece.
A class act with no curse attached as far as I know.

So they used a modern mouthpiece to get the trumpet sound...

His story goes that the precious instrument shattered, possibly because of a modern mouthpiece being inserted to play it. According to Mr Keating's colourful account, Mr Lucas was left as shattered as the trumpet and needed hospital treatment. The instrument, at least, was repaired.

This means the trumpets could have been symbolic funerary ornaments or more like a vuvuzela or not even meant to be played but it doesn't really matter as the sound is haunting and evocative and maybe how it would have sounded those thousands of years ago.

 

[skinny]

Imagine 70 to 100 of these sounded in unison during a funerary, military or corronation rite. The psychological and emotional impact would have been quite something.

 

[Novena]

Interesting article here giving a nice overview about the legendary curse of Tutankhamun, and examining its roots from a historical and sociological viewpoint and its various adaptations in modern times:

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/altered-states/why-does-the-mummys-curse-refuse-to-die/

It came from an Egyptian tomb... Well no, actually, it didn’t. But once a myth lurches into life, there’s no stopping it
by Jo Marchant

On 24 March 1923, an ominous warning circulated in the British press. ‘According to a rare book I possess,’ wrote Marie Corelli, an elderly romantic novelist with supernatural leanings, ‘the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb.’ She went on to quote the book’s description of ‘divers secret poisons enclosed in boxes in such wise that they who touch them shall not know how they come to suffer’. Corelli’s fantastical tales of reincarnation and astral projection had been a favourite with Queen Victoria. She had sold more novels than her contemporaries H G Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling put together. It didn’t matter that the book she quoted, An Egyptian History of the Pyramids, was seen by scholars as a mundane collection of fairytales. When Corelli spoke, the public listened.

The target of her admonition was George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. Along with the British archaeologist Howard Carter, Carnarvon had recently discovered the treasure-filled tomb of Tutankhamun. The spectacular discovery of this 18th-dynasty pharaoh’s intact resting place was a press sensation, and journalists camped out around the tomb’s entrance to glimpse the glittering finds, from delicate jewellery to thrones and chariots, as they were carried out on wooden stretchers. A particular source of excitement was the prospect of revealing the mummy of the king himself, which was still hidden within its huge granite sarcophagus. But with the find of a lifetime had come the ultimate misfortune. Corelli wrote in response to reports that Carnarvon was languishing in a Cairo hotel room suffering the effects of an infected mosquito bite. Less than two weeks later, he was dead.

[...]

Evidently, Carter and Carnarvon had touched a nerve. The interesting thing is, that nerve appears not to be particularly connected to Egypt — or anywhere else in the ancient world, for that matter. To be sure, stories of vengeful mummies predated the discovery of Tutankhamun, but they are not a particular feature of Egyptian culture, ancient or modern. Only a few written warnings have been found in tombs; they tend to come from the Old Kingdom, around the 24th or 25th centuries BC (more than a millennium before Tutankhamun’s time) and they are found as much in non-royal tombs as in those of the pharaohs.

etc.

The whole thing is well worth a read - even von Däniken gets a mention! Although, as one commenter points out, there's no discussion of the theory that it was ancient mould spores which did for some of the discoverers. :?:

One interesting fact which I had not read before:

[Shortly after Carnarvon's death] the British Museum was deluged by mummy-related parcels — shrivelled hands, feet, ears, and heads — posted by souvenir collectors concerned that they, too, would join Carnarvon in his fate.

:lol:

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Could have gone in Fortean Culture too, I suppose.

Demons, mummies and ancient curses: should the British Museum be afraid?

The British museum already teems with spooky objects. Could an ancient Assyrian artwork prove one curse too many?


theguardian.com Jonathan Jones. 27 March 2014

Is the British Museum afraid of an ancient Assyrian curse?

Surely not. The famous Bloomsbury museum possesses many spooky treasures that it displays without so much as a shudder. Its collection of Egyptian mummies is the stuff of Hammer horror. It possesses the magical accessories of the Elizabethan magus John Dee and a bronze Mesopotamian demon that fans of The Exorcist will have no trouble recognising as Pazuzu. Yet it is apparently unlikely to place a bid at Bonhams in London on 3 April for a fragment of an Assyrian stele that carries a curse written in cuneiform, even though it owns the other part of the relic.

I'm not sure the cuneiform curse – which says that anyone who removes it from its original site will come to a sticky end – has put off the British Museum. It may also figure it has enough Assyrian art already.

This ancient empire, which once ruled a vast swathe of the Middle East, looms large in the museum's collections. Giant winged bulls, bronze gates and epic relief carvings of battles, sieges, mass executions and lion hunts, all excavated from the royal palaces of the Assyrian rulers, are installed on an architectural scale between its Egyptian monuments and its Greek temple treasures.

Assyrian art is monstrously impressive. The empire was cruel and savage, and its art chronicles its brutal ways with unblushing honesty. The reliefs in the British Museum depict prisoners being tortured and killed on an industrial scale. For fun, the emperors are shown killing lions at close quarters with arrows. Even the style of its art is fearsome and unforgiving: Its harsh muscular lines intentionally communicate power without mercy.

It is scarcely surprising, then, that such a fierce culture was free with its curses. Actually, the curse on the stele strikes me as quite an exciting text by the standards of the Assyrian empire. Most of the palace reliefs in the British Museum are inscribed with repetitive, relentless boasts about the Assyrian ruler's authority and might. A curse sounds like light relief.

The hybrid monsters that once guarded such palace gateways loom up, magical and inhuman. Assyrian art is certainly awe-inspiring – but perhaps not civilised. I admire their art but cannot look at it for long. If I pass from the British Museum's Assyrian galleries to the graceful grandeur of ancient Egypt or the Greek gods exhibited nearby, I sense a greater human richness. Egypt and Greece were civilisations. Assyria was not.

Perhaps Assyrian art is indeed "cursed" by the blood and gore it celebrates. I am sure the British Museum does not believe in ancient words of magical menace. But Assyrian art itself casts an evil spell.

So, fear of ancient curses, aesthetics (is Assyrian art too savage and butch for the BM?), or simply skint?

 

[PeteByrdie]

There's a weekly TV series about museum staff fending off ancient monsters and defeating curses in all this somewhere. What's Garth Marenghi up to these days?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

The bit that's got me, on second reading, is the idea that the Assyrian culture wasn't civilised enough for the BM. :lol:

 

[PeteByrdie]

Yeah, they need a better screening process. Can't just let any old hoi polloi ancient cultures into our museum. We're British, for heaven's sake!

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

A mummy from Siberia instead of Egypt, but plenty of tales of ill-fortune surrounding the removal of the "Ice Maiden".
The local people claim her curse has resulted in earthquakes. Even scientific types seemed affected. The archaeologists who found her reported a series of disturbing nightmares and numerous misfortunes following the removal of the mummy:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...iggers-mother-of-all-disputes-in-Siberia.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

In the dozen years since the 2004 Telegraph article was written the Ice Maiden dispute has continued, even though the mummy has been repatriated to Gorno-Altaysk (capital of the Altai Republic, within which she was discovered).

The authorities agreed to return the mummy to the Altai Republic circa 2011. A construction project underwritten by Gazprom produced the current Altai national museum (Anokhin Museum), which opened with its Ice Maiden exhibit in 2012.

A 2011(?) article from Go To Altay claims a high-fidelity 'mannequin' model was to be the figure exhibited, with the actual mummy being stored for scientific study elsewhere in the museum.

Such studies have continued after the mummy's repatriation. As of late 2014, researchers had determined from MRI's the Ice Maiden suffered from metastasized breast cancer and significant skeletal injuries consistent with a fall (possibly off a horse).

This October 2014 Siberian Times article:

http://siberiantimes.com/science/ca...d-from-breast-cancer-reveals-unique-mri-scan/

... details those findings, reviews the mummy / dispute history, and mentions that as of that time traditionalist locals were still not satisfied and continued pressing for the mummy to be reinterred on the Ukok Plateau where she was discovered.

I haven't found any sources or citations relating to any specifics on either misfortunes attributed to the mummy's initial removal to Novosibirsk or the level of such attributed misfortunes once the mummy returned to the Altai Republic.

SOURCES:
http://www.gotoaltay.com/news/Princess_Ukok_returns.html
http://siberiantimes.com/science/ca...d-from-breast-cancer-reveals-unique-mri-scan/

 

[rynner2]

Another ancient earth mystery with a curse attached...
The strange case of the ancient Assyrian curse and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
Patrick Sawer, Senior Reporter
21 January 2017 • 10:03am

The country's most senior police officers often face criticism, but rarely do they have an ancient Assyrian curse hanging over their heads.
With just a few weeks left in the job, and no doubt looking forward to a peaceful retirement, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has become embroiled in a legal dispute over the ownership of a 2,800-year-old artefact.

Worse still the rare artefact, worth an estimated £800,000, comes with a chilling curse placed over anyone who tampers with it or moves it from its place of origin.

On the black basalt slab, part of a larger piece depicting King Adad-Nirari III, are carved the words: “Whoever discards this image from the presence of Salmanu . . . and places it into a taboo house which it is inaccessible, may the god Salmanu, the great lord, overthrow his sovereignty; may his name and his seed disappear in the land, may he live in a contingent together with the slave women of his land.”

In a saga worthy of a Hollywood archaeological adventure film the Met’s Commissioner is being sued by a Lebanese antiques dealer after his officers seized the slab, known as a 'stele', following claims it had been stolen.
The controversy began when it became known in art circles that Halim Korban was planning to auction the stele at Bonham’s, in Geneva, in April 2014.

The Beirut-based Saadeh Cultural Foundation informed UNESCO that the stele had been obtained illegally, probably after being looted from a site in modern Syria, and should be returned to that country “as soon as circumstances permit”.

The upper half of the stele, showing King Adad-Hirari’s profile, has been held at the British Museum since it was acquired in 1881 from the private collector Joseph M Shemtob, two years after its discovery at the Tell Sheikh Hamad site.
But, seemingly suspicious of its origins, the museum declined to buy the lower portion of the piece when offered the opportunity by Mr Korban in November 2011.

The dealer turned to the open market, but on the eve of the auction officers from Scotland Yard’s art and antiques unit raided the Bonham's warehouse where it was being stored and seized the King Adad-Hirari stele as evidence in any future trial.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ent-assyrian-curse-commissioner-metropolitan/

 

[EnolaGaia]

This August 2014 Moscow Times piece mentions the most specific list of alleged Ice Maiden / Oochy Bala curse effects I've found so far ...

Siberians Fight Scythian Mummy's 'Curse'

An ancient mummy found in the Altai Mountains is responsible for the area's worst flooding in 50 years, local activists and shamans said, Interfax reported Monday.

A petition for the reinterment of the 2,500-year-old "Altai Princess" is presently under way, in a drive to spare the Republic of Altai her posthumous wrath, Interfax said Monday.

The mummy, also referred to as Oochy-Bala, has also launched earthquakes and caused a spike in suicides in the Siberian region, one of the campaigners was cited as saying. ...

SOURCE: https://themoscowtimes.com/news/siberians-fight-scythian-mummys-curse-37991