The Egyptian Curse?

Egypt-The Land with a million Enigma. Egypt hails one of the most ancient civilizations in the whole world. The land is adorned with umpteen Pyramids and an awe-inspiring landscape. There have been a million citations of Egyptian mysteries that have puzzled the world for a long time. However, the greatest Egyptian mystery till date is that of the "Curse of Tutankhamun".

Legend has it that the royal tombs of ancient Egypt were sealed with monstrous curses against all those who trespassed into the domain of the afterlife. Tutankhamun was a young pharaoh of Egypt who had a mysterious death in his early king hood. It is believed that the excavators who had dug out the tomb of king Tutankhamun were anathematized and suffered mysterious deaths. Inside the tomb of the young pharaoh, Tutankhamun, hieroglyphic inscriptions are believed to have spelled out a dreadful end for all those who entered.

The person who lead the excavations of Tutankhamun's tomb was Howard Carter. He was trained as an artist, but became a notable excavator in Egypt. Funded by Lord Carnarvon, Carter had tried to find the tomb of King Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings beginning in 1917. Year after year, his workers uncovered nothing of importance. Given one last season before his funding was stopped, Carter made the discovery of his life when he found the legendary king's tomb in 1922. The discover of the tomb was a milestone in Egptian Archeology. Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter boasted proudly about their discovery and remarked that this discovery will uncover a million secrets that engulfed the death of the boy pharaoh.

But Alas! Lord Carnarvon could not live long since the excavation of the tomb. When Lord Carnarvon died on 5 April 1923, seven weeks after the official opening of pharaoh Tutankhamun's burial chamber, rumours were rife about a curse. News of Tutankhamun's tomb and its discoverers had sent the world's media into a frenzy and the death of Lord Carnarvon added another twist for eager journalists. This incident gave way to the rumors abou the "Egyptian Curse", leaving the world perplexed and causing the other excavators of Tutankhamun's tomb to stay panic-stricken. Simiarly, a lot of people associated with the tomb's ecavation were pushed to death mysteriously.

Gradually, events occured that all seemed to testify the "Egyptian Curse". Owing to this lot of exploration was set out on the tomb's excavation.

All sorts of links were found. The lights of Cairo were said to have gone out at the moment of his death (not an uncommon occurrence back then), while back at Carnarvon's English estate his dog, Susie, was supposed to have howled and died at the same time.

Carnarvon's death came just a couple of weeks after a public warning by novelist Mari Corelli that there would be dire consequences for anyone who entered the sealed tomb. The media and public lapped it up. Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a believer in the occult, announced that Carnarvon's death could have been the result of a "Pharaoh's curse".

But despite such tales, many of the prime memebers of the excavation team, lead a long happy life. For instance, the curse should have laid squarely on the shoulders of Howard Carter himself, but he lived another 17 years, dying just prior to his 65th birthday. Yet he had spent about a decade working in the tomb. Others likewise lived long and fruitful lives. It was also believed that not just the excavators, but also some of the robbers who had tried to rob the hiiden treasures in pharaoh's tomb also died pathetically and mysteriously.

Amidst all these chaos, a short scientific thought can solve the hidden mystery. As we all know dead bodies degenerate and are prone to infections. It is also held that the mummies are carefully preserved in some sort of solution that keeps the mumies from wearing out. Yet, there is no assurance that the mummies are disinfected. May be the inscriptions in Hieroglyphics are a casual warning to keep the humans away from catastrophic infections. So, it ma be that the death of some of the excavators was due to the infections they had sufferd in exacvating the mummy. While the one's who survived may have been blessed with good immunity. Similarly, there have been a lot of theories that proved that the curse was baseless.

Today, archaeologists wear protective gear when unwrapping mummies. In 1999, Gotthard Kramer, a German microbiologist from the University of Leipzip, suggested that there might be some truth to the mummies curse. Studying 40 different mummies, he identified several potentially dangerous mold spores. He believes that when tombs were first opened, fresh air could have disturbed these spores, blowing them into the air, and perhaps, creating health problems. So we can end up that the "Egyptian Curse" is just a result of wild imagination. So every mystery will alwas have a scientific clue, search for the clue and the mystery will be solved.