
Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They who shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose”.
Scary right? Well that is one of many warnings – or curses – found in many Ancient Egyptian tombs to ward off wanderers and thieves.
Stories about the Pharaohs’ curses are countless. The recently found Sarcophagus in Alexandria, that may or may not be the final resting place of Alexander the Great, brought theories and stories about the curses back to the surface, with rumors already circulating that Alexandria’s Sarcophagus is cursed and could bring 2000 years of darkness!
So we decided to bring you stories about some of the creepiest deaths attributed to Ancient Egyptian curses.
1- The German Thief
An ancient Egyptian relic was sent in 2007 with a note to the German Embassy in Egypt, wit a note from an anonymous sender confessing that since its theft it caused nothing but pain and suffering for him and his family.
Apparently the thief stole the relic when he was in Egypt as a souvenir, and took it with him to Germany, but he suddenly started suffering from an unknown illness. He became feverish, his illness evolved to paralysis, and eventually death.
The relic was sent back by the thief’s step son, who believed that there would not be rest for his family or the soul of his step father until it was returned to Egypt.

2- Tutankhamun’s Curse
“Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King,” says a warning on Tutankhamun’s tomb. It was ignored by Egyptologist Lord Carnarvon and discoverer Howard Carter when they decided to open the tomb in 1922.
Lord Carnarvon was the financial backer of the team and he died 4 months after opening the tomb. What’s interesting is that he died of a mosquito’s bite on his cheek, and when he died all the lights in his home went out mysteriously.

3- The Severed Hand
While thankfully no one died, we think this one deserves its place in this list. Sir Bruce Ingham was a friend of Howard Carter, so it was no surprise that he received gifts from his friend, however this gift was kind of creepy.
It was a severed mummified hand wearing a bracelet which was inscribed with the words: “cursed be he who moves my body.” A few days later Ingham’s house was burned to the ground and after rebuilding the house, it was hit with a flood destroying it again.

4- Victims of Tutankhamun
A wealthy American named George Jay Gould visited the Tutankhamun tomb a year after its discovery, but he fell sick as soon as he left the tomb, never recovered, and died of pneumonia later.
Sir Archibald Reid on the other hand wasn’t even on the expedition, he was a radiologist and was just given the mummy of Tutankhamun to X-ray, he got sick the day after receiving the mummy and died less than a week later.

5- The Book of the Dead
Aaron Ember, an American Egyptologist died in his house when it burned down, just after hosting a lavish dinner party.
While he and his family could have left safely, he went back to save documents he was working on titled “The Egyptian Book of the Dead”.

6- Succumbing to the Curse
Terrified of the curse that has taken lives of several of his friends and colleagues, archaeologist Hugh Evelyn White took his own life by committing suicide at home.
Conflicting reports stated that he left a note saying: “I have succumbed to a curse which forces me to disappear”. Some say it was written with his own blood!

7- The Mummy’s Coffin that Killed 1500 People
This one is kind of tricky, as many claim it’s not really true, but it’s an interesting story nonetheless. It started out as ghost story, sounds were heard coming from a Mummy’s wooden coffin at night in one of the British museums. But when one of the museum guards died mysteriously, they decided to ship the coffin off to the US to get rid of it in a ship named The Titanic. The rest of the story is history.

8- Osiris Does What He Does Best
Egyptologist Walter Bryan Emery found a small statue of Osiris, the God of Death, in Sakkara in 1971. He brought it back to the dig’s office, but after leaving it to go to the bathroom, Emery’s assistant heard a commotion inside and he found Emery in a paralyzed state.
Emery died the following day after being diagnosed with paralysis in the right side of his whole body.

9- A Yearly Visit from Death
This one affected famed Egyptian explorer and Egyptologist Zahy Hawas, when he was transporting artifacts from a site called Kom Abu-Billo one day, his aunt died. A year later and on the same day his uncle passed away. The following year it was his cousin’s death, but then it stopped. Hawas still does not believe in the existence of the curse.
