King Tutankhamun or otherwise known as the “Boy King” was the youngest pharaoh to rule the mighty Egyptian kingdom. Born circa 1341 B.C.E., King Tut was the 12th king of the 18th Egyptian dynasty, in power from approximately 1332 to 1323 B.C.E. (Biography.com) His reign unfortunately ended prematurely due to unforeseen circumstances which will play a small part in what is known worldwide as the infamous King Tut’s Curse. King Tut was buried in a small tomb in Thebes, Egypt. The curse although not written in hieroglyphs on the tomb’s walls themselves or written anywhere for that matter, is known only by word of mouth. The supposed curse states that anyone who enters the young pharaoh’s tomb will meet their untimely fate. Now as I said, this
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He was merely a figurehead of Egypt for most of his reign until he died at the age of nineteen years old. Tut fought no amazing battles, he undertook no great architectural project, he negotiated no significant peace treaties, he in fact did nothing of monumental greatness and was ultimately forgotten. So how and why is the name king tut so widely known today other than just this silly curse? King Tutankhamun’s tomb, before nineteen twenty four, had never been discovered by bandits and grave robbers because he was buried in a tomb that was never meant to be for a pharaoh. It wasn’t until Egyptologist Howard Carter unsealed the boy kings tomb in nineteen twenty four, that we saw how amazing his tomb was. Undisturbed for centuries, it still contained all of the king’s possessions which allowed Carter to present the world with the first intact burial tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh. It was a novelist by the name of Marie Corelli, who first claimed to discover the curse in an ancient book but again was nowhere to be found in or near the burial site itself. The Curse stated according to Corelli “Death comes on the wings to he who enters the tomb of the pharaoh”. Nothing in that “curse” directly links itself to King Tut, so how do we know it’s not linked to the great pharaoh Khufu or …show more content…
The main oddity connected to the curse which gives it life is that most of the people connected to the unearthing of the tomb died mysteriously after. The fact is, is that the twenty three people intimately associated with the tomb’s opening lived an average of twenty four years after entering the tomb. Eighty years after the grand opening of the tomb, The British Medical Journal published a scientific study of the mummy's curse. Mark R. Nelson of Monash University in Australia studied the survivability of 44 westerners that were in Egypt with Howard Carter during the time of the initial excavation of the tomb. Out of the 44, 25 of the westerners were present during several “opportunities” for the curse to attach itself to them. Some of those opportunities were opening of the third door, opening of the sarcophagus, and examination of the mummy. His study re-enforced that the 25 who were exposed to the curse averaged a life span of 70 years and the others that were unaffected lived an average life of 75 years old. Carter even tried to argue that Pharaonic curses had no place in Egyptian death rituals. Tomb inscriptions sometimes contained protective formulas, messages meant to frighten off enemies from this world or beyond, but usually just wished the dead well. (HowStuffWorks, 2008) The only person to die shortly after was George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th
He was merely a figurehead of Egypt for most of his reign until he died at the age of nineteen years old. Tut fought no amazing battles, he undertook no great architectural project, he negotiated no significant peace treaties, he in fact did nothing of monumental greatness and was ultimately forgotten. So how and why is the name king tut so widely known today other than just this silly curse? King Tutankhamun’s tomb, before nineteen twenty four, had never been discovered by bandits and grave robbers because he was buried in a tomb that was never meant to be for a pharaoh. It wasn’t until Egyptologist Howard Carter unsealed the boy kings tomb in nineteen twenty four, that we saw how amazing his tomb was. Undisturbed for centuries, it still contained all of the king’s possessions which allowed Carter to present the world with the first intact burial tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh. It was a novelist by the name of Marie Corelli, who first claimed to discover the curse in an ancient book but again was nowhere to be found in or near the burial site itself. The Curse stated according to Corelli “Death comes on the wings to he who enters the tomb of the pharaoh”. Nothing in that “curse” directly links itself to King Tut, so how do we know it’s not linked to the great pharaoh Khufu or …show more content…
The main oddity connected to the curse which gives it life is that most of the people connected to the unearthing of the tomb died mysteriously after. The fact is, is that the twenty three people intimately associated with the tomb’s opening lived an average of twenty four years after entering the tomb. Eighty years after the grand opening of the tomb, The British Medical Journal published a scientific study of the mummy's curse. Mark R. Nelson of Monash University in Australia studied the survivability of 44 westerners that were in Egypt with Howard Carter during the time of the initial excavation of the tomb. Out of the 44, 25 of the westerners were present during several “opportunities” for the curse to attach itself to them. Some of those opportunities were opening of the third door, opening of the sarcophagus, and examination of the mummy. His study re-enforced that the 25 who were exposed to the curse averaged a life span of 70 years and the others that were unaffected lived an average life of 75 years old. Carter even tried to argue that Pharaonic curses had no place in Egyptian death rituals. Tomb inscriptions sometimes contained protective formulas, messages meant to frighten off enemies from this world or beyond, but usually just wished the dead well. (HowStuffWorks, 2008) The only person to die shortly after was George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th