10 debunked historic curses have long fascinated the curious and the superstitious alike. Curses are as ancient as civilization itself, with countless stories in holy texts, folklore, and even the Bible—where Jesus famously cursed a barren fig tree. Yet many of these ominous legends crumble under scrutiny, revealing more about media hype and human psychology than any supernatural force.
10 debunked historic Curses Overview
10 The Curse of Tutankhamun
The curse of Tutankhamun, like the preceding Curse of the Pharaohs, or Mummy’s Curse, was mainly the creation of a media beset with competition, eager to sell newspapers. When Howard Carter’s expedition discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922, it set off a media frenzy. When Carter entered the tomb in late November, accompanied by George Herbert, Lord Carnarvon, who financed the expedition, the frenzy hit a peak. More than 5,900 artifacts were eventually excavated from the tomb. They did not find a document or any other item describing a curse promising an early death to any desecrating the tomb, though later events led the press to report they had.
The following spring, Lord Carnarvon cut himself shaving, according to some slicing a mosquito bite which had already become infected. On April 5, 1923 Lord Carnarvon died of sepsis, caused by his infected wound, and though he had been in ill health for over two decades, the media seized upon the curse of King Tut. Several other deaths followed among the excavators, but according to the British Medical Journal The Lancet at a rate which did not exceed that of normal for a population sampling of similar size. Howard Carter lived for another 16 years, dying at the age of 64, of natural causes.
The Curse of King Tut both built upon and expanded on tales of curses enacted by the ancients to protect their final resting places and the items they took with them on their journey to the other world. Since the excavation, Tut’s mummy, and many of the items excavated from his tomb, have toured the world. Whenever the displays reach a new destination the media faithfully reproduces the legend of the Curse of King Tut, titillating their audience with threats of doom. But there is little evidence to support there ever was a curse, and less that the curse was found in writing by Carter and his team.