🗄️ ENIGMA ATLAS // FILES
📜 LEGEND · EXP. Nº0270 ACTIVE

The Curse of Tutankhamun

The Curse of Tutankhamun is a legend from Valley of the Kings, Luxor, EG — a folk story passed down over generations. This file collects its origins, its meaning and how it has been retold.

Where does the legend of The Curse of Tutankhamun come from?

Location
Valley of the Kings, Luxor, EG
Kind of legend
Curse
Coordinates
25.74, 32.601
Testimonies
0
Last updated
LOCATION

What is the legend of The Curse of Tutankhamun?

When archaeologist Howard Carter breached the sealed tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, he uncovered treasures beyond imagining and, according to legend, awakened a deadly curse. The story took hold when Lord Carnarvon, the expedition's wealthy patron, died in Cairo just months later from an infected mosquito bite. Newspapers reported that at the moment of his death the lights of the city flickered out and his dog howled and dropped dead back in England. Whispers spread of an inscription warning that death would come on swift wings to whoever disturbed the pharaoh's rest, and journalists eagerly tallied every subsequent misfortune among those linked to the tomb. Skeptics point out that Carter himself, the man who actually opened it, lived on for more than sixteen years, and that the death rate among the excavators was unremarkable. Yet the curse of the pharaohs proved irresistible, blending ancient Egyptian awe of the afterlife with modern fascination, and it endures as the most famous malediction ever attached to an archaeological discovery.
The Curse of Tutankhamun, Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt
Image: Jerzy Strzelecki · CC BY-SA 3.0

What is the history of The Curse of Tutankhamun?

The curse of Tutankhamun has a documented author, and the man who named him was Howard Carter. On 4 November 1922 the Egyptian workmen of Carter's dig, led by the rais Ahmed Gerigar, uncovered a cut step in the rubble of the Valley of the Kings. Within three weeks the step had become a staircase and the staircase a sealed door, and a stalled provincial excavation was the biggest news story on earth. Correspondents from every major paper in Europe and America travelled to Luxor and camped at the mouth of the tomb. Then Lord Carnarvon, who had financed the dig for years without return, made the decision that turned the press against him. In January 1923 he sold the news rights to a single title: The Times of London paid £5,000 up front and left him three quarters of the profits from reselling the story worldwide. Every other reporter at Luxor now had to buy the news of Egypt's greatest discovery from a British rival, hours late — the Egyptian press included, working on Egyptian soil. They needed something The Times did not own. Unable to report the tomb, they reported around it. Among the excluded was Arthur Weigall, a former Inspector-General of Antiquities in Upper Egypt who had returned as a correspondent for the Daily Mail and knew the country well enough to make atmosphere read like evidence. Omens began to appear in print: Carnarvon's canary taken by a cobra on the day the tomb was opened, ancient warnings against breaking seals. In March 1923 the best-selling novelist Marie Corelli wrote to the New York World that "the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb", citing an obscure volume she said she owned. Three weeks later, on 5 April 1923, Carnarvon died in Cairo. He had opened an infected mosquito bite while shaving; it became blood poisoning and then pneumonia. In an ordinary news cycle that is an obituary. In this one it was a confirmation. Arthur Conan Doyle, by then a committed spiritualist, told reporters the death might be the work of an "evil elemental", which he defined as "a built up, artificial thing"; the Australian paper The Argus reported the malign influence of the dead pharaoh as if it were established. The same coverage erased the people who had actually found the tomb. Carter's Egyptian foremen and workmen appear constantly in Harry Burton's photographs and almost never in the captions. Weeks after Weigall died in January 1934, Carter wrote privately from Luxor: "The 'Tutankhamun Curse' was his invention."

Timeline: the documented record of The Curse of Tutankhamun

  1. 4 November 1922 The Egyptian workmen of Howard Carter's dig, led by the rais Ahmed Gerigar, uncover the first cut step of the staircase leading down to KV62. The world's press begins to converge on Luxor.
  2. January 1923 Lord Carnarvon sells worldwide news rights to The Times of London for £5,000 plus three quarters of the syndication profits, shutting out every rival correspondent — including the Egyptian press.
  3. March 1923 Novelist Marie Corelli writes to the New York World that "the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb", quoting an obscure book she claims to own. It is published weeks before Carnarvon falls ill.
  4. 5 April 1923 Carnarvon dies in Cairo of blood poisoning and pneumonia after opening an infected mosquito bite while shaving. The excluded press has its confirmation.
  5. April 1923 Arthur Conan Doyle tells reporters the death may be the work of an "evil elemental"; The Argus in Australia reports the malign influence of the dead pharaoh as established fact. Stories that cannot be checked — the lights of Cairo failing, Carnarvon's dog dying in England — enter circulation, one of them sourced to his son, who was in India at the time.
  6. 21 January 1934 Weeks after Weigall's death, Carter writes from Luxor to Helen Ionides: "The 'Tutankhamun Curse' was his invention. Believed out of pique — a sort of vengeance." The letter surfaced at auction in 2026.
  7. 1939 Howard Carter dies, sixteen years after entering the burial chamber. The man with the greatest exposure to the alleged curse outlived almost everyone who wrote about it.
  8. December 2002 Mark Nelson publishes a historical cohort study in the BMJ: of 44 Westerners identified in Carter's records, the 25 exposed died at a mean age of 70 against 75 for the unexposed. No effect on survival is found.
  9. January 2019 The Getty Conservation Institute and the Egyptian antiquities authorities close a decade of work in KV62. The brown spots on the wall paintings are confirmed as microbiological but dead and unchanged since the 1920s, undercutting the idea of a living fungal hazard in the tomb.

Is there a rational explanation for The Curse of Tutankhamun?

There is no curse inscription in the tomb, and never was. Its wall texts are spells from the Book of the Dead, written to secure the king's eternal life, not anyone else's. The line usually quoted as the curse — some version of "death shall come on swift wings" — is a rewriting of a harmless magical-brick formula whose sense is closer to "I am the one who prevents the sand from blocking the secret chamber". The survival figures are no kinder to the legend. In December 2002 the physician Mark Nelson published a historical cohort study in the BMJ, using Carter's records to identify 44 Westerners in Egypt during the excavation. Twenty-five had been present at one of four decisive openings, the first on 17 February 1923. Their mean age at death was 70, against 75 for the unexposed (P=0.87); mean survival after exposure was 20.8 years against 28.9 (P=0.95). The odds of dying within ten years came out at 1.38 (95% CI 0.20 to 9.6) — a range so wide it means nothing. Carter, who opened the tomb himself, lived until 1939. The curse lists work by counting only deaths: anyone linked to the tomb who died was added, and nobody who survived was ever subtracted. The fungal hypothesis is more serious but unproven. Aspergillus flavus and A. niger are real pathogens with durable spores that can kill vulnerable people. What is missing is the fungus. None has ever been documented in KV62, and the decade of study the Getty Conservation Institute and the Egyptian authorities closed in 2019 found the brown spots on the wall paintings microbiological but dead, unchanged since 1920s photographs: melanin residue, not a living colony. Carnarvon died of a bacterial infection that entered through a razor cut, not of anything he breathed underground.

Can you visit The Curse of Tutankhamun?

Tutankhamun's story is now split between two places, and both charge separately. KV62 is in the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank at Luxor, roughly 30 to 40 minutes by taxi from the east bank. The general valley ticket admits you to three tombs from the open rotation; Tutankhamun is not one of them and needs an extra ticket, which in 2026 costs more than the general admission itself (around 600 EGP for the valley and about 700 EGP for KV62, with student rates roughly half — figures change often, so check before you go). The site opens at 06:00 and closes in the late afternoon. Inside KV62 you will find a small, plain tomb: the quartzite sarcophagus, the painted burial chamber and the king's mummy, which has been displayed in a climate-controlled case since 2007. Conservators recommend no more than about twenty visitors at a time for ten minutes, so it can be crowded and quick. The treasure is not there. More than five thousand objects from the tomb, including the gold mask, are at the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, whose Tutankhamun galleries are covered by the standard ticket (around 1,450 EGP for foreign adults in 2026). Tickets are timed and sold online only. Practical warnings: the valley is a rock basin with almost no shade and summer temperatures well above 40 °C. Go at opening. Expect steps, uneven ground and dust throughout.

Sources consulted

  1. Howard Carter, «Howard Carter Autograph Letter Signed on "The 'Tutankhamun Curse'" (Luxor, 21 January 1934, to Helen Ionides)» — RR Auction, lot description and transcription, 2026 archive
  2. All About History Team, «The Facts Behind the Curse of Tutankhamun: Fake News from Beyond the Grave» — All About History, 2017 web
  3. Joshua J. Mark, «The Mummy's Curse: Tutankhamun's Tomb & the Modern-Day Media» — World History Encyclopedia, 2017 web
  4. Mark R. Nelson, «The mummy's curse: historical cohort study» — BMJ 325(7378):1482-1484, 2002 academic
  5. Christina Riggs, «Photographing Tutankhamun: Photo-Objects and the Archival Afterlives of Colonial Archaeology» — Max Planck Research Library, Photo-Objects, 2019 academic
  6. Nancy Kenney, «Getty wraps up conservation effort at King Tutankhamen's tomb» — The Art Newspaper, 2019 newspaper archive

Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-07-29 · How we verify our content

📎 Source: Enigma Atlas

Your call, agent: I saw this too 0 Credible 0 Doubtful 0

💬 Field testimonies (0)

No testimonies yet. Add the first.

Add your testimony

🔒 Log in to add a testimony

📜 Legends from Egypt

EXP. Nº0001 EXTENDED ACTIVE
📜 Zerzura, the Lost Oasis City
📍 Western Desert / Gilf Kebir, EG 🏷️ Lost treasure 💬 0

Zerzura is a lost oasis nobody has ever found, and its paper trail is shorter and stranger than the legend suggests. The name first appears around ...

See all legends from Egypt →