The Truth Behind the Pharaoh's Curse

Hello, hello Abandon Hope I' so excited. I'm pretty excited as well. There's nothing I love more than a big fucking old and ty scary pasto Egyptian And that's exactly what we've got for you. And we're gonna kick off with a quote that I'm going to read to you. With trembling hands, I made a tiny brereech in the upper left hand corner and blank space as far as an iron testing rod could reach showed that whatever lay beyond was empty not filled like the passage we'd just cleared Candle tests were applied as a precaution against possible foul gases And then widening the hole a little I inserted the candle and peered in Lord Kavaran, Lady Evelyn, and Calllender, standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict At first I could see nothing The hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker presently As my eyes gre accustomed to the light Details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist Strange animals Geez everywhere the glint of gold Those are the words of Howard Carter, the man responsible for the greatest archaeological find in history The Tamb of Tuton Comin Pharaoh King and child Ruler the eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt Almost as soon as the discovery was made, rumors started swirling in the press that the tomb was never meant to be found and that everyone involved was in danger Curse of Tutank Kamun And then A few months later, the expedition's main financial backer was found dead. And as for what killed him If you believe the rumors It was the little phharaoh himself, claiming a revenge against those who had disturbed his body Sh This. Now before we get into the really exciting stuff about phharaohs and their curses We need to set the sce Who was Howard Carter Well, in a refreshing turn of events for us at red handed He seems to have been a pretty decent man. Oh, that's nice. It is nice. Ns nice that when that happened. Yeah Born in eighteen seventy four, Carter was the youngest of eleven siblings the son of artist and illustrator, Samuel John Carter and his wife Martha Despite coming from relative affluence, Howard Carter didn't really receive much of a formal education probablyroably because he was the youngest of even And he was mostly into art and adventure As a teenager, Howard was a regular visitor to Didlington Hall a mansion owned by the wealthy Amhherst family. An Sean Combs No, I'm kidding. Oh right. It's his nickname's the Diddler. All right. I just thought he'd bought this b. No, no no. No, he's in jail That's true This family, the Amhst family, not Sean Combs, though maybe he is They were known to be collectors of Egyptian antiquities And this sparked a curiosity into all things ancient and Egyptian for the young Howard Carter And when he showed his considerable artistic talent to Lady Amherst, she organized for him to be sent to Egypt to help a family friend excavate and record archaeological finds sayaying he showed his considerable artistic talent to Lady Amherst makes it sound like he flashed her Unconfirmed Don't fact check, Lady Amhherst's Atist fllasher By the age of twenty five, Carter had been appointed insspector of monuments of Upper Egypt for the Egyptian Antiquity Service and he was instrumental in the exploration of the Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings is every bit as exciting as it sounds It's a set of valleys and hills in Luxor and Northern Egypt, in which the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt buried its leaders and high ranking officials As insspector of monuments, Carter revolutionized archeology by introducing a new systematic method of exploration as well as improving the protection of excavated ruins. and making them more accessible to archaeologists Theakara kept this prestigious appointment for five whole years until the's Aakara affair which, despite its romantic name, was actually a messy, violent confrontation between a group of French tourists in the Valley of the Kings and the Egyptian guards who were employed to protect the site The tourists were being disrespectful to both the archaeological sites they were visiting and the guards themselves. Although it's not explicitly noted, it's widely assumed that the tourists were being racist towards the Egyptian guards when they couldn't have their way, and things turned violent. The French government got involved Howard Carter backed the guards in the official investigation and he ended up unemployed in Egypt for several years So With nothing else to do Carter sold watercolourors and sketches on the Valley of the Kings just to make ends meet If you're waiting for me to make a derisive comment about French people, I'm not taking the bait. Luckily for Carter and archaeology on the whole He didn't stay unemployed forever In nineteen oh seven, Carter was recommended to George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnovon. Haret was wealthy and obsessed with ancient Egypt So the pair struck up a partnership, working together to hunt down and excavate tombs across Egypt The pair were responsible for some considerable fines And Carter's dedication to preservation means that many of those pieces are still viewable to this day By nineteen twenty two, the pair had been working together for fifteen years and the discoveries were dwindling There was a growing sentiment across the archaeological community that everything that could be found in the Valley of the Kings been found already There was actually some pretty sound reasoning behind this conclusion arrchaeologists had a reasonably good idea of the lineage of the pharohs of ancient Egypt. especially in the New Kingdom, which was the time when the Valley of the Kings was used And they were pretty sure that they tracked down tombs for all of them Pus, it wasn't just modern day explorers tracking down and carefully chronicling these tombs Toom raaiders have been ransacking them for centuries Howard Carter did have a hunch that there might be one more tomb lurking down there somewhere Tutin Khammun wasn't a particularly well known name within Egyptology at the time burial had actually already been accounted for quite some time ago But I'd never quite satisfied Carter previous site, some ceremonial offerings had been found with Tutank Khamman's name inscribed on them But they'd never found a body. For the wider community, this was enough to call it a day. The cart is suspected wasn't everything that had been laid down for the phharaoh Regardless, George Herbert was ready to pull the plug on any more excavations He'd spent a fortune over the last decades And the fines weren't coming in as hot and fast as they once had However Howard Carter convinced him to give him one more year or a season in Egypt. And they called them seasons because Egypt is really, really hot so you can only dig for a small portion of the year. Oter had systematically gone over almost the entirety of the Valley of the Kings In some cases, more than once He was a completionist And there was one last site that they hadn't looked into. A collection of ruined huts that had been used by ancient Egyptian labouorers the ones who'd built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings wasn't much, but it was worth a look And it's a testament to the long standing friendship between the two men that Herbert agreed to finance Carter's one last season so that Carter could leave feeling satisfied Egypt completed Cartter's final season in the Valley of the Kings began earlier than normal on the first of november nineteen twenty two A lot had changed over the sixteen years that he'd been working with Herbert For a start, Egypt was now an independent country This wasn't a big deal for Carter He got on well with his Egyptian peers In fact, he lost his job to back them However, it did make archaeology in Egypt a lot more complicated than when it had been under British occupation. Mostly because Egypt wanted to keep a proportion of what was found which is fair enough The other big challenge was Egypt had done a great job of bolstering its economy with tourism, which made excavations a lot more difficult was one of the reasons that they'd started their season off so early Pretty quickly into this final excavation, Howard Carter feeling that there was more to be found was validated. On the fourth of November, a stone step was found near the ancient workers' huts Some say that this step was found by a worker on the dig, others say it was found by an Egyptian boy who was playing nearby Either way, it was a big deal The step was unearthed And another step was found. Then another and so on until a stone staircase was revealed that led down to the entrance Tune From the outside, this tomb was not all that remarkable. It was smaller than you would expect for a pharaoh more likely for some sort of dignitry instead doesn't need that much room Actually, the tomb seemed so unimportant that it had been covered thousands of years ago. when workers building another tomb are just chuck dirt over the entrance Chuckking had kept it hidden for about three thousand years Once the plaster door was fully uncovered, cter cut a small hole and peered through onn the other side was a big pile of rubble notot exactly what he'd been hoping for It looked interesting enough to warrant a look. So we ordered the staircase to be covered and sent a telegram to Herbert in the UK, asking him to get over their prronto Because it was the olden times Zanuba hadn't been invented yet, it took her but nineteen days to arrive By which point Carter had recruited another of his friends to come along This man was called Arthur Callander And he was always on tch In reality, the only reason we're including Arthur is a to make that joke. And be because Carter mentions him in that opening paragraph, and we didn't want you to think that we'd missed out someone important George Herbert finally arrived with his daughter, Lady Evelyn in tow, and Carter's team began to unearth the entrance to the tomb once again A clloser inspection of the plaster door revealed an inscription Sot and comeun Carter's Hunch had been right This is a paid advertisent for Better Help Some people love summer Schools out, sun is shining and adventures the name of the game There is the other side of the season sweaty commutes, lifeve admin, the social pressure of feeling like you have to make the most of the longer days Summer becomes less about thriving and more about surviving. And I am in that second camp. If you're a summer stressor too, then therapy is a great way to find balance. With over thirty thousand therapists worldwide, BetterHelp is one of the leading online therapy platforms having served over six million people globally And it works. With an average rating of four point nine out of five for a live session based on over one point seven million client reviews P can help people better understand their needs, feel more confident setting boundaries and create a version of summer that actually feels good You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. find support and therapy Sign up and get ten percent off at betterterhel d. com slash reed handanded. That's better H ELp. com slash red handed Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for in my daily wardrobe Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on And that's why I keep coming back to Quintince They focus on high quality essentials, like breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk Without that luxury price tag Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman so you're paying for quality instead of pointless brand markups So the great news is that everything at Quintince is priced fiftycent to eighty percent less than similar brands Their lightweight linen sets have been a lifesver for me in these warmer months, and with prices from just thirty two dollars for a one hundred percent European linen You honestly can't get wrong Elevate your summer wardrobe. go to quins d. com slash red handed. For free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too That's QU IN cE dot com slash redhanded for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quint dot com slash red handed That day they broke through the first plaster door and entered a corridor filled with rubble and a loose collection of artifacts It sort of looked like it hadd been used as some kind of dump. But passast the dump, they found a second door. Carter once again created a peephole in the plaster and looked through it And that's when he gave the description, I read to you at the beginning strange animals, statues and gold everywhere The glint of gold The second room, known as the antechamber, acted as a gateway to further rooms behind. and was filled with Tutank Kamun's most prized possessions. The most famous items are the wheels of several war chariots, a paper fan which depicted the phharaoh hunting, and several couches whose wooden structures had been carved into the shape of a hippo, a lion, and a cow A quick Google will bring up these pictures taken before anyone entered the antechamber showing the stacks of possessions, as they had been left for over three thousand years In total, there were seven hundred objects within the antechamber making it one of the biggest finds in Egyptian archaeology. And things were just getting started Coming off from the antechamber were two doors One was open The other was closed. one led to a room that we now call the Annex which was filled with about two hundred and eighty items Most of this stuff was for Tutank Kamoun to enjoy in the afterlife, stuff like food, drinks, oils, board games. All of the stuff he would need to be happy on the other side The room had clearly been accessed by grave robbers, but none from this century or the last or the one before that As you can imagine, any culture that puts its noble dead in big rooms full of gold and valuables will always have an issue with looting Tunamun's tomb had been looted at least once, but only for small objects like golden game pieces About three thousand years ago And since then headadlid intact A few days later, the team breached the second door And this was the moment that their dreams really came true Behind it was the Phah's burial chamber with its walls covered in intricate paintings of Tutank Kamun chatting with the gos and being welcomed into the afterlife In the center was a shrine which Carter hoped to God contained a mummy. It'd actually been stung before opening a sarcophagus at a dinner party, which he hoped would impress his guests, onlyn to find nothing inside I would be very embarrassed. Very, very adequ. I am the primo Egyptologist. Nothing Oh I'm just like yeah, I guess they're quite heavy, so you might not be able to tell that it was empty as well. Oh good However, this time luckily for Karto, Titun Kaman's shrine was almost completely intact It consisted of four nesting wooden boxes And within this was a carved box of quartzite AKA the subcumfus Within that were three nesting coffins. And within that was the mummy of Tutank Kamon His mummy was adorned with a golden death mask, which has now become just a symbol of the pharaoh but of ancient Egypt And in some ways, the study of history itself Fun fact, the mask doesn't actually depict Tutank Kamun himself, but the go of the afterlife O ciris It's also inscribed with a spell from the Book of the Dead As if it couldn't get any more exciting for Carter, there was still one more room behind the burial chamber treasury As its name might suggest, this room was filled with the final and most valuable things that Tutank Kamun would need in the Great Beyond along with his vital organs in canopic jars contained within an enormous golden shrine. plus twenty two wooden boats pointing west ready to take him across to the Great Beyond Guarding this room was a life size statue of the jackl god, Anubis I've seen a picture of this and caption of it was like, o, the jackal as discovered by Carter as they opened the tomb. But it's like wearing a little I don't know whether they're just like, Just keep you safe, Listen, Mr. Jackle G it gets cold Maybe it was just broken and they were like a stick a cable on it. Mbe So all of this was and still is, the single most important find in the history of the study of ancient Egypt. may even be the most important find in history itself remains the only intact Egyptian tomb ever found. by Well, to understand that, we need to first talk a bit about who Tutan Karmon was The short answer is it wasn't that important He was most likely the son of the much more revolutionary Thero Archenacton. Agnakton was responsible for massive social reforms in ancient Egypt and converted his empire to the monotheistic worship of the god, Atten This was massive at the time poolythheeism was an essential part of ancient Egyptian culture and it secured the phhaoh's role as a go king So basically the phharaohs didn't rule by divine right Nor were they the mouthpiece of God They were the gods themselves So that meant when Arkin Aarten died, a lot of people wanted their old beliefs back Eespecially those who just lost quite a lot of religious power Enter the nine year old club foooted Tutan Carmoon who we think is Arnarton's son by some sort of minor wife that wasn't that important After ascending to power and under the heavy influence of his advisors, the young pharaoh brought back the polythheistic worship that everyone knew and loved And to be brutally honest, that is kind of it And there will be Egypt fanatics who say that his life was a lot more interesting And it was in the sense that he was a pharaoh and that's pretty great I didn't really do anything He did have a wife, and an enormous litany of health problems, including a club foot, a cleft palate, a severe underbite, one or potentially several genetic disorders potentially developmentally disabled as well. Super inbad Super inbred And nineteen He died We don't really know But being that inbred is pretty difficult and probably some kind of infection took come out has like Yes, minor wife so maybe it wasn't his dad's sister But like nine times out than it was. And you know, there's generations. Yes of sister brother marriages that go before him. Yeah one non blood related minor wife isn't going to solve all those problems. Now, all this might sound a little bit harsh. But it is exactly his unimportance that has led Tutank Khamman to being so important today Just ask Kufu Kafra a medical Those three pharaohs had the great pyramids built as their tombs Now building a four hundred and fifty foot polished white triangle with a gold tip that's the tallest building on Earth for several thousands of years is indeed a great legacy but it is also quite conspicuous. As a result, the pyramids were of course pillaged to heaven long before even Jesus could havellow up Where it's for Tut and Kamun His tomb was only robbed once, and they barely took anything interesting Still though, this find was an international sensation and Tutermania swept the globe. All sorts of house parties and even home decors suddenly became king tu themed That's so random. isn it We don't need much, do we You gotta love it. You gotta love how simple we are. I love that So like in the mid twenties, everyone's just throwing king tu parties. It would seem so. Wow And with the new ancient celebrity came ancient celebrity accusations nameamely Pharaoh's cururse This is a paid advertisent for Better Help Some people love summer Schools out, sun is shining and adventures the name of the game There is the other side of the season sweaty commutes, lifeve admin, the social pressure of feeling like you have to make the most of the longer days Summer becomes less about thriving and more about surviving. And I am in that second camp. If you're a summer stressor too, then therapy is a great way to find balance. With over thirty thousand therapists worldwide, BetterHelp is one of the leading online therapy platforms having served over six million people globally And it works. With an average rating of four point nine out of five for a live session based on over one point seven million client reviews P can help people better understand their needs, feel more confident setting boundaries and create a version of summer that actually feels good You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. find support and therapy Sign up and get ten percent off at betterterhel d. com slash reed handanded. That's better H ELp. com slash red handed Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for in my daily wardrobe Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on And that's why I keep coming back to Quintince They focus on high quality essentials, like breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk Without that luxury price tag Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman so you're paying for quality instead of pointless brand markups So the great news is that everything at Quintince is priced fiftycent to eighty percent less than similar brands Their lightweight linen sets have been a lifesver for me in these warmer months, and with prices from just thirty two dollars for a one hundred percent European linen You honestly can't get wrong Elevate your summer wardrobe. go to quins d. com slash red handed. For free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too That's QU IN cE dot com slash redhanded for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quint dot com slash red handed For as long as people have been digging up people's tombs, there have been rumors of curses whether it's a Viking one, a Saxon one, an ancient Greek one, or an ancient Egyptian one And to be fair, in the oldld kingdom of ancient Egypt, curses were often written on tomb doors to try and stop people from looting them. It really isn't more complicated than that But because we're in the know, we all realized that King Tut was a newew Kingdom phharaoh, so his tomb did not have any curses written on it at all That didn't stop the press As soon as it was common knowledge that on the day that Carter had first opened the tomb, He had sent a messenger boy up to his house, and when that boy arrived, he found that a cobra had broken into Carter's bird cage and eaten his canary And obviously if you need it spelling out, the Cobra is a long standing symbol of the phharaoh. But also here is in Egypt with a fucking canary on show. Well, one would assume he's taking it into caves with him. Left him home that day. W, quite. Keep him safe from the Cobras But as we hinted towards the beginning of this episode, doesn't end there Because four months after they'd breached the walls of Tut's tomb. George Herbert and died Naturally, this pushed the rumors of the pharaoh's curse into overdrive because so far the death tooll had just been one canary. and the British press swirled with both supernatural and scientific explanations for Herbert's death Obviously, the supernatural explanation was the cs. which is clearly Bllocks. But some of the scientific explanations did hold some water Most notably the suggestion that some kind of bacteria or poison had been hidden in the tomb to attack and kill anyone who entered Unfortunately, though, as fun as this sounds, it isn't quite true In reality, Herbert snagged a mosquito bite while shaving and died of a resulting infection although rumor has it that King Tut's body also had a scar in the same exact spot Pace