King Tut's sarcophagus uncovered
Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, they uncovered the greatest treasure of the tomb--a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that held the mummy of Tutankhamen.
When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for "King Tut's Tomb", finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact.
Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over four years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years.
In this case, the artefact that the expedition was looking for was not here. In fact, they had found nothing that they thought to be of any value to the true reason why they were there. With the death of the workers and visitors to the site only strengthening the reasons to be there, this was a big let down to the university. After further investigation, we believe that it is the coffin and not the mummy that the "curse" originated from and that the boy king was given to the "ancient ones" in the gold coffin. What we cannot figure out is why the coffin was then buried inside two stone coffins and a stone sarcophagus after what looks like the ritual was completed.
List of known deaths connected to the search:
When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for "King Tut's Tomb", finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact.
Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over four years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years.
In this case, the artefact that the expedition was looking for was not here. In fact, they had found nothing that they thought to be of any value to the true reason why they were there. With the death of the workers and visitors to the site only strengthening the reasons to be there, this was a big let down to the university. After further investigation, we believe that it is the coffin and not the mummy that the "curse" originated from and that the boy king was given to the "ancient ones" in the gold coffin. What we cannot figure out is why the coffin was then buried inside two stone coffins and a stone sarcophagus after what looks like the ritual was completed.
List of known deaths connected to the search:
- Lord Carnarvon, financial backer of the excavation team who was present at the tomb's opening, died on April 5, 1923 after a mosquito bite became infected: he died 4 months and 7 days after the opening of the tomb.
- George Jay Gould I, a visitor to the tomb, died in the French Riviera on May 16, 1923 after he developed a fever following his visit.
- Egypt's Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey died July 10, 1923: shot dead by his wife.
- Colonel The Hon. Aubrey Herbert, MP, Carnarvon's half-brother, became completely blind and died 26 September 1923 from blood poisoning related to a dental procedure intended to restore his eyesight.
- Woolf Joel, a South African millionaire and visitor to the tomb, died November 13, 1923: shot dead in Johannesburg by blackmailer Baron Kurt von Veltheim whose real name was Karl Frederic Moritz Kurtze.
- Sir Archibald Douglas-Reid, a radiologist who x-rayed Tutankhamun's mummy, died January 15, 1924 from a mysterious illness.
- Sir Lee Stack, Governor-General of Sudan, died November 19, 1924: assassinated while driving through Cairo.
- A. C. Mace, a member of Carter's excavation team, died in 1928 from arsenic poisoning
- The Hon. Mervyn Herbert, Carnarvon's half brother and the aforementioned Aubrey Herbert's full brother, died May 26, 1929, reportedly from "malarial pneumonia".
- Captain The Hon. Richard Bethell, Carter's personal secretary, died November 15, 1929: found smothered in his bed.
- Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury, father of the above, died February 20, 1930; he supposedly threw himself out of his seventh floor apartment.
- Howard Carter opened the tomb on February 16, 1923, and died well over a decade later on March 2, 1939. However, some have still attributed his death to the 'curse'.
Note:
Thanks to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creative story to the press about "'elementals' created by Tutankhamun's priests to guard the royal tomb", original cover story no longer needed as this has had a sufficient effect in keeping grave robbers and treasure hunters away from the site.
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