King Tut Cursed No One

Study in the British Medical Journal finds that the famed “mummy’s curse” was ineffectual:

The death in 1923 of George Herbert (Lord Carnarvon), the financier of the expedition that unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamen, unleashed a sensation in the international newspapers. He had developed erysipelas at the site of a mosquito bite, which resulted in septicaemia and pneumonia. The speculation was that his death was due to a “mummy’s curse.” The press reports of the time had the death of every man and his dog being associated with the curse, no matter how obscure the connection. This was literally the case for Lord Carnarvon as his three legged canine was said to have bayed at the very time his master succumbed and promptly turned up his paws.

….Carter recorded the presence of 44 Westerners in Egypt at the relevant time, of whom 25 were potentially exposed to the mummy’s curse. They were members and relatives of Carnarvon’s and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s excavation teams, the press, Belgian royalty, British officials and dignitaries, and experts employed by the Egyptian government. I established dates of death for all of those exposed and 11 (58%) of those not. The table lists the characteristics and mean survival of exposed and unexposed groups. Figure 3 shows a dose-survival plot for those exposed to the curse. There were no significant differences for the four groups.

These darned scientists, ruining perfectly good myths.