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May 11, 2005
To Curse of Not to Curse - - Tut, Tut
The announcement of an upcoming National Geographic movie has resurrected the legend of the curse of King Tutankhamen. The announcement reflects on the possibility that Lord Carnarvon (and others) died from some toxin associated with Tut's tomb or mummy: bacteria like Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus or chemicals like ammonia, formaldehyde, and hydrogen sulfide or perhaps even bat shi guano fungus.
The article also does indicate that most scientists think there is no curse at all. As the National Geographic announcement says,
But experts who have examined the case of Lord Carnarvon believe that tomb toxins played no role in his not-so-untimely demise.The elderly Carnarvon was chronically ill before he set foot in Tut's tomb. Plus, his death occurred months after his initial exposure to the tomb. If he had been exposed to biological beasties in the tomb, they would have manifested themselves sooner.
"I take the position that Howard Carter [the archaeologist who opened the tomb] took before me," said F. DeWolfe Miller, professor of epidemiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Given the sanitary conditions of the time in general, and those within Egypt in particular, Lord Carnarvon would likely have been safer in the tomb than outside."
Aydin Örstan of Snail's Tales reports,
This reminded me of a study in the December 2002 issue of the British Journal of Medicine1 that compared the fates of 25 Westerners who were present during the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen with those of a control group of 11 (sic) Westerners who were in Egypt at that time, but did not visit the tomb.
I quote the abstract of the article,
Objective: To examine survival of individuals exposed to the "mummy's curse" reputedly associated with the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen in Luxor, Egypt, between February 1923 and November 1926.Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Participants: 44 Westerners identified by Howard Carter as present in Egypt at the specified dates, 25 of whom were potentially exposed to the curse.
Main outcome measures: Length of survival after date of potential exposure.Results: In the 25 people exposed to the curse the mean age at death was 70 years (SD 12) compared with 75 (13) in those not exposed (P=0.87 for difference). Survival after the date of exposure was 20.8 (15.2) v 28.9 (13.6) years respectively (P=0.95 for difference). Female sex was a predictor for survival (P=0.02).
Conclusions: There was no significant association between exposure to the mummy's curse and survival and thus no evidence to support the existence of a mummy's curse. [emphasis in original]
Bottom line: there was no curse of the mummy!
Via Zinken
1. Mark R Nelson, M.R. 2002. The mummy's curse: historical cohort study. British Journal of Medicine, 325:1482-1484.
Posted by Duane Smith at May 11, 2005 3:10 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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