The curse of Tutankhamun was invented by Victorian writers.
A London based scholar has discovered that the curse of Tutankhamun, an Egyptian pharaoh who died over 3,000 years ago, was really the invention of a young English author.
Following years of research, Dominic Montserrat, an Open University Egyptologist, has established that the infamous curse of King Tut had its origins in 19th-century England, rather than ancient Egypt. His investigations led him back to a show that took place near London's Piccadilly Circus in 1821, where an extraordinary theatrical "striptease'' took place in which Egyptian mummies were unwrapped in public. By coincidence, in the audience was the 25-year-old novelist, Jane Loudon Webb, who was inspired by this spectacle to pen an early science-fiction novel entitled The Mummy - which featured a vengeful mummy from the 22nd century B.C., who returned from the dead to kill the book's hero.
In 1828, an anonymous English children's book called The Fruits of Enterprize was published, in which mummies were set ablaze and used by explorers as torches to light the inside of an Egyptian pyramid (inevitably, the mummy's were portrayed as being malicious).
By the late 1860s, the notion of the vengeful mummy had taken root in the publics' imagination. Indeed, the American author, Louisa May Alcott, then wrote a short story called Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy's Curse. Other novelists followed suit and, from 1880, continued to do so over the next thirty years.
"Death shall come on swift wings to him that toucheth the tomb of Pharaoh" When Tutankhamun's burial chamber was opened in 1923, the well-known English author, Marie Corelli (pseudonym of Mary Mackay), put to use the literary creation of the mummy's curse and issued a dramatic warning that "the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb". The sudden death just a couple of weeks later of Lord Carnarvon, chief sponsor of Howard Carter's excavations of the royal tomb at Thebes, made the front pages of the world's newspapers. It was revealed that an "ancient Egyptian" warning had been found in the Tut's tomb at the Valley of the Kings. From then on, all misfortunes and deaths associated with the expedition were put down to the curse.
In the decade following the discovery of Tutankhamun's resting place, only six of the 26 people present at the opening of the tomb died. In fact, Montserrat insists that there are no genuine Egyptian curses relating to opening tombs or removing articles from them. Apparently, in ancient times grave robbers faced the anger of the civil courts rather than that of a resurrected mummy and were often put to death for theft.
Theoretically, Tutankhamun should have been delighted by the discovery of his tomb. According to ancient Egyptian belief, the king's immortal soul would survive only if his name was occasionally mentioned. Carnarvon's discovery guaranteed that, after aeons of hush, the old King's name would provoke discussion for many years to come.