ANCIENT tales and beliefs about a “curse” put on a person or thing is well known in many cultures, but how much of all this is true?

Let us examine a belief related to the pharaohs of Egypt. Famous for their riches and glory, they had a great belief in the afterlife. They were very scared of the ‘Underworld’ or the place where people went after they died. They thought the god of the underworld was cruel so to please him, they kept a lot of treasures in the burial chamber of kings, queens and the nobility. Then there were many items kept for the comfort of the dead too. And not only were their bodies mummified to look nice to the people in the Underworld, their coffins or sarcophagus, were filled with jewels and encrusted with gems too.

Their high priests would do the ritual and say special prayers when enclosing the mummy and the burial chambers were sealed tight and a curse was put upon anyone who tried to enter and open the coffin.

There was such a curse linked to the tomb of King Tutankhamen, a young king who died in his youth, probably murdered by his uncles or enemies to stop him from becoming the next pharaoh. No statue or mention of him in the ancient records, so no one had heard of him until the discovery of his tomb.

In the 19th century, archaeologists from Europe were extremely interested in the hidden tombs of the pharaohs. Most of the tombs, even with all the expertise of ancient engineering had been robbed. Howard Carter, a young archaeologist from England, convinced a wealthy Englishman, Lord Carnarvon to finance his search for a tomb that he believed was still undiscovered. Starting off in 1891, Carter had found nothing for five years. For a final attempt Carter went back to Egypt with a pet yellow canary. Carter’s local foreman Reis Ahmed stated, “It will lead us to the tomb.”

Call it a coincidence, but it did. On November 4, 1922, a step cut into a rock that was not visible due to the debris led him to the tomb of Ramessis IV. Further on 15 more steps emerged, leading to a sealed doorway. The name on the door was Tutankhamen! When he went back home, Carter’s servant opened the door. He had yellow feathers in his hand. He looked frightened and said that a snake, a sign that the curse of the tomb had begun and had eaten the canary, “The pharaoh’s serpent ate the bird because it led us to the hidden tomb. You must not disturb the tomb!”

Carter brushed off the remark as a superstition. He couldn’t stop now. Carter drilled a hole through the innermost door and held a candle. Peering through he could see “wonderful things”, as he told Lord Carnarvon, who was behind him.

It is said though that Carter had found a stone tablet with the inscription of a curse, “Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King” and “As for anybody who shall enter this tomb in his impurity, I shall wring his neck as a bird’s. As for anyone who destroys, it is the god Thoth who shall destroy him. As for him who shall destroy this inscription, he shall not reach his home. He shall not embrace his children. He shall not see success.” Carter is said to have hidden it.

The tomb was magnificent. There were three gold coffins inside a sarcophagus, one inside the other and in the innermost one was the mummy of the young pharaoh. Call it bad luck or the curse, just a few months after the tomb was opened, Lord Carnarvon became ill and died. The reason: an insect bite that got infected. Surprisingly, when the mummy was unwrapped later, it had the mark of a wound on the left cheek, exactly in the same place as Lord Carnarvon.

According to legend, when he died in England, the lights in Cairo went off due to a short power-cut. At his home, his dog gave out a loud howl and suddenly dropped dead. Eleven people died of mysterious causes who were connected to the discovery, one of whom reported seeing horrible dreams. And 10 more died later. But Howard Carter survived many years, which is why sceptics say that the curse was just a superstition and a result of the press to get attention.