Land of the Pharaohs

Egypt

The pyramids

The Sphinx

The head of the Sphinx

The Nile

The Nile

A mummy

Mummy of a pharaoh

Egyptian mummy

Hieroglyphics

Tutankhamun

• Among all the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, Tutankhamun is the most famous one. This is mainly due to the extraordinary wealth of artifacts found in his tomb in the famous Egyptian valley of kings. These artifacts of Pharaoh Tutankhamun were discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter, in 1922, more than 3000 years after Tutankhamun's death.

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Mummy in Cairo’s museum

Mummification

• The Egyptians preserved the dead bodies of the pharaohs by using salt and various substances to dry them out, after they had removed all the internal organs.

The Mummy's Curse

• When, in November of 1922,  Howard Carter discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor, the world was really very different than it is today.  It was not a time of live television.  Rather, the world of media still belonged to newspapers, and information traveled much more slowly, and less reliably.  It was a more superstitious time, and the media was fully adjusted to take advantage of the attribute to sell their publications. It was a time when reporters often simply made up facts and in believed them.

•  • The media covered the event, and the world paid attention to

the treasures that Howard Carter discovered in Tutankhamun's tomb.

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• In late March of 1923, a novelist named Mari Corelli (Mary Mackay) published a warning that there would be dire consequences for anyone who had entered the sealed tomb.  Perhaps this revelation was inspired by the fact that on the day Howard Carter opened the tomb, his pet canary was swallowed by a cobra.  Cobras, as the goddess Wadjet, were the protectors of the Pharaoh.

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• Lord Carnarvon financed Howard Carter's explorations. He had been in poor health for over 20 years following a motoring accident.  When he died of pneumonia in Cairo on April 5th, 1923, only a few weeks after Mari Corelli's warnings,  newspapers and other media throughout the world simply went crazy. As often as not, they made up the facts as they went along. Even Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and himself a believer in the occult and at this time a very popular writer, announced that Lord Carnarvon's death could have been the result of a "Pharaoh's curse".

•  • It was said that at the moment of Lord Carnarvon's death, the lights

went out in Cairo (an event that is still not uncommon today), and that back in England his dog, susie, howled and died in the same instant. These reported events are difficult to prove.

Lost in a Pyramid: The Mummy's Curse".

Lost in a Pyramid: The Mummy's Curse".

• Who (Characters)

• Where

• When

• What (story events)

• How

• Why

• Type of ending

• In this tale, an explorer again uses a mummy as a torch to brighten the interior of a pyramid.  He discovers some seeds in the pyramid, and carries them back to America.  His fiancee decides to plant the seeds, which then grow into grotesque flowers.  Upon their wedding, she wares one of the flowers and inhales their scent, sending her into a coma as she becomes a living mummy. Other novelists also developed stories along the lines of the mummies curse, both in England and America over the next 30 years.

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