Carnarvon's son was resting in an adjoining room at the moment of his father died. He said: 'The lights suddenly went out all over Cairo. We lit candles and prayed.'Shortly afterwards''DEATH will come to those who disturb the sleep of the Pharaohs' That was the warning found inscribed in the tomb of the Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun at Luxor when it was opened in February 1923 ' for the first time in 3,000 years.The man who led the expedition to Egypt to excavate the ancient tomb was an Englishman, 57- year-old Lord Carnarvon. And the Curse of the Pharaohs was well known to him. He knew what had happened to the man who, in the late 19th Century, had brought another Pharaoh's coffin back to England. Arthur Weigall, one of the men in Lord Carnarvon's team, had told him all about the owner of that coffin: 'No sooner had he obtained the coffin than he lost his arm when his gun exploded. The ship in which the coffin was sent home was wrecked. The house in which it was kept was burnt down. The photographer who took a picture of it shot himself. A lady friend of whom the owner was very fond was lost at sea. The list of accidents and misfortunes charged to the spirit connected with the coffin is now of enormous length.'But before the expedition went down into the tomb of Tutankhamun, Weigall heard Carnarvon make light of the Curse. Weigall warned: 'If he goes down in that spirit, I give him two months to live.'Carnarvon's scorn of the Curse was perhaps only bravado. For two months earlier, he had received a letter from a well-known mystic of the day, Count Hamon. The cryptic message read: 'Lord Carnarvon not to enter tomb. Disobey at peril. If ignored will suffer 'sickness.' Not recover. Death will claim him in Egypt.'The English nobleman was so concerned about this warning that he twice consulted a fortune-teller who twice forecast Carnarvon's early death in mysterious circumstances.And within two months of breaking into Tutankhmun's tomb, Carnarvon was dead. Moreover, within six years, 12 more of those who had been present when the funerary chamber had been breached had also died prematurely. And over the years that followed, the Curse of the Pharaohs claimed several more victims among those who had been associated with the fateful expedition. One of them was the man who had twice warned Carnarvon of disaster-'Weigall.The sinister saga began in April of 1923 when one morning Carnarvon awoke in his Cairo hotel room and said: 'I feel like hell.' By the time his son arrived at the hotel, Carnarvon was unconscious. That night he died. His death was attributed to a mosquito bite ' which was noted to be in the same place as a blemish on the mummified body of King Tutankhamun.Carnarvon's son was resting in an adjoining room at the moment his father died. He said: 'The lights suddenly went out all over Cairo. We lit candles and prayed.'Shortly afterwards, there was another death at the hotel. American archaeologist, Arthur Mace, who had been one of the leading members of the expedition, complained of tiredness, suddenly went into a coma and died before doctors could even diagnose what was wrong with him.Deaths followed one upon another. A close friend of Carnarvon, George Gould, rushed to Egypt as soon as he heard of the Earl's death. Gould visited the Pharaoh's tomb. The next day he had a high fever, He died within 12 hours. Radiologist Archibald Reid, who x-rayed Tutankhamun's body, complained of exhaustion. He went home to England and died shortly afterwards. Carnarvon's personal secretary on the expedition, Richard Bethell, was found dead in bed from apparent heart failure. British industrialist, Joel Wool, was one of the first visitors to the tomb. He died soon afterwards from a mysterious fever. By 1930, only two of the original teams of excavators who had broken into the tomb were still alive.The Curse of the Pharaohs was still taking its toll half a century later. In 1970, the sole survivor of the Tutankhamun expedition, 70 year-old Richard Adamson, gave a television interview to 'explode the myth' of the death curse.He told viewers: 'I don't believe in the myth for the moment.' Afterwards, as he left the Norwich television studios, his tax collided with a tractor, throwing him out on to the road. A passing lorry missed his head by inches.It was the third time that Adamson, who had been security guard to Lord Carnarvon's expedition, had tired to put paid to the legend. The first time he spoke against it, his wife died within 48 hours. The second time, his son broke his back in a plane crash. After the third occasion, Adamson, recovering in hospital from head injuries, said: 'Until now, I refused to believe that there was any connection between the Curse and what happened to my family. But now I am having second thoughts.'A year later, the Curse of the Pharaohs struck again, but this time Tutankhamun had no hand in it. British Egyptologist Prof. Walter Emery was digging for the tomb of the god of medicine. Imhotep, at Sakkara, near the Pyramids, when he uncovered a statue of Osiris, the god of death. The professor was handling the statue when he fell dead from a cerebral thrombosis.Fears of the Curse of the Pharaohs were revived in 1972 when the golden mask of Tutankhamun was created for shipment to Britain for an exhibition at London's British Museum to mark the 50th anniversary of the tomb's discovery.In charge of the operation was Dr. Gamal Mehrez, director-general of the antiquities department of the Cairo Museum, where he was responsible for the safe keeping of 20 ancient mummies. Dr. Mehrez did not believe in the Curse not even after his predecessor had suddenly died within hours of signing an agreement to send the treasures of Tutankhamun to Paris, Mehrez said: 'I, more than anyone else in the world, have been involved with the tombs and mummies of the Pharaohs. Yet I am still alive, I'm the living proof that all the tragedies associated with the Pharaohs are just coincidence. I don't believe in the Curse for one moment.'On February 3, 1972, the shippers arrived at the Cairo Museum to remove the created golden mask of Tutankhamun and prepare if for its journey to London. That day, Dr. Mehrez died. HE was 52. The cause of his death was given as circulatory collapse.Unperturbed, the organizers of the exhibition continued with the arrangements. A Royal Air Force Transport Command aircraft was loaned for the job of transporting the priceless relies to Britain. But within five years of the flight, six members of the plane's crew were to be struck by death or ill fortune.During the flight, Chief Technical officer Ian Lansdowne jokingly kicked a box containing Tutankhamum's death mask. He said: 'I've just kicked the most expensive thing in the world.' That leg was later in plaster for five months, badly broken after a ladder inexplicably collapsed under Lansdowne.The aircraft's navigator, Lieutenant Jim Webb, lost all his possessions after his home was destroyed by fire. A girl abroad the plane quite the RAF after a head operation left her bald. A steward, Sergeant Brain Rounsfall, said: 'On the flight back, we played cards on the coffin case. Then we all took in turns to sit on the case containing the death mask and we laughed and joked about it. We were not being disrespectful 'it was just a bit of fun,' Sergeant Rounsfall was 35 at the time. In the following four years, he suffered two heart attacks, but survived, a worried man.Less lucky were Lieutenant Rick Laurie, chief pilot aboard the Britannia aircraft, and Engineer Ken Parkinson. Both were perfectly fit men; both died of heart attacks.Parkinson's wife said: 'My husband suffered a heart attack every year at about the same time as the flight.' The last attack, in 1978, killed him. He was 45.Chief pilot Laurie died two years before him. At the time, his wife said: 'It's the Curse of Tutankhamum ' the Curse has killed him.' He was just 40.Is there any logical explanation for the mysterious death of so many people'Journalists Philip Vandeberg studied the legend of the Curse of the Pharaohs for years.He came up with a fascinating suggestion. In his book. The Curse of the Pharaohs, he say that the tombs within the Pyramids were perfect breeding grounds for bacteria which could develop new and unknown strains over the centuries and could maintain their potency until the present day.He also points out that the ancient Egyptians were experts in poison. Some poisons do not have to be swallowed to kill ' they can prove lethal by penetrating, which were then sealed and make airtight. Grave-robbers who in ancient days raided the tombs always first bored a small hole through the chamber wall to allow fresh air to circulate before they broke in to plunder the Pharaohs' riches.But the most extraordinary explanation of all for the Curse was put forward in 1949. It came from the atomic scientists Prof Louis Bulgarian. He said: 'It is definitely possible that the ancient Egyptians used atomic radiation to protect their holy places. The floors of the tombs could have been covered with uranium. Or the graves could have been finished with radioactive rock. Rock containing both gold and uranium was mined in Egypt 3,000 years ago. Such radiation could kill a man today.'If there is any truth in the belief that the ancient Pharaohs can be held responsible for 20th-century deaths, then there is one case which overshadows all others. In 1912, a liner was crossing the Atlantic with a valuable cargo ' an Egyptian mummy. It was the body of a prophetess who lived during the reign of Tutankhamun's father-in-law, Akhenaton. An ornament found with the mummy bore a pell: 'Awake from the dream in which you sleep and you will triumph over all that is done against you.' Because of its value, the mummy was not carried in the liner's hold, but in a compartment behind the bridge on which stood the captain whose errors of judgement played a part in causing his ship to sink. The story of the sinking of that ship, and of the death of the 1,513 passengers aboard her is told elsewhere. Her name is The Titanic.'Culled from a foreign magazine.
Click here to read full news..
