Tutankhamun Curse
Society Author William Cross, FSA Scot ( who has written several books about the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle) comments on the Curse of Tutankhamun
Author of “ Carnarvon, Carter and Tutankhamun Revisited”, William Cross, FSA writes on the Curse of Tutankhamun.
I take Howard Carter’s view of the so called King Tut curse: that it was ‘Tommyrot’; something man made, encouraged by local Egyptians whose heritage was being removed by foreigners all around them, coupled with daft stories fuelled by journalists fighting for a good headline. After 1922 there were several deaths of folk caught up in the Tutankhamun tale, the curse was introduced and hysteria and human playfulness set it to work.
Lord Carnarvon’s death ( from natural causes) was inevitable, it was inconvenient and had to be staged managed. See below. Some of the other demises were exaggerated odd-ball, they were not well enough explained or facts were taken liberty with, but nothing of this was owing to any curse from the ancients. Causes of death are often secret or bizarre and complicated by circumstances of fate and madness or even medical incompetance. Many of those folk who feature in the King Tut story were affected by family secrets, bad habits, poor health and incautious living. The climate of the Egypt affected many of them more so than any curse acting to strike them down dead.
Howard Carter lived and ate, slept and worked constantly in the tombs in Egypt for many years, he was not afraid or needed to be afraid of curses, he was more concerned with avoiding disease and taking sufficient respite and drinking enough whisky to blot out a hard day’s graft and ease his fragile body frame!
Moreover I do not subscribe to the stories ( fostered even by some academics who should know and do know better) about so called warning signs being present or threats being given, these aspects are the work of troublemakers. There are no warnings in old writing texts that Carter considered wary, or dangerous, or fearsome other than those from and by errant priests to warn off grave robbers, thieves and the gullible. There was certainly no threatening sign of death will come etc to those who disturb the tomb. Nothing like this was found in or above the tomb or evidence of intervention by the gods, the crazy things cited were only of acts that were the work of human hands. Almina, Lord Carnarvon’s widow who lived until she was 93 cast aside the curse, and snubbed superstitions, rumours, gossip etc, she was more afraid of the real demons in their midst, like the unscrupulous beggars, dishonest natives that would have sold a life for a shilling, or the deadly cobras who moved around in close proximity to where she and Lord Carnarvon sat and swotted flies in open tents in order to watch the digs.
In my recent book “ Carnarvon Carter and Tutankhamun Revisited: The Hidden Truths and Doomed Relationships” ( 2016) I have appraised much of the so called facts of other signs of the ancients and other strange forces at work c 1923 e.g the cobra that consumed Carter’s canary, the lights going out in Cairo as Carnarvon died, a dog howling and perishing at Highclere. These are all fictions or have scanty facts dressed up as true. If any of it has a true source, I’ve not found it, it's a whole charade, just that. Also the work of hacks planting and keeping going a story, that began with the Cairo correspondent of Reuters News Agency making world news with a so called insect bite affecting Carnarvon rather than of revealing the true story of Carnarvon being in extremis with a terminal illness, viz throat cancer and dying. That truth could not be revealed. Such a ploy by news agencies like Reuters was to deflect attention away from the real crisis of Carnarvon being doomed, especially with so much money at stake with media deals etc All this chaos and crisis caused Almina’s daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert ( the Earl's nurse) to panic, Carter was at loggerheads with Carnarvons and turned his back on his patron, and Almina rushed to her husband’s bedside to aid his passage into peace and oblivion.
All that said Lord Carnarvon was very superstitious and more in tune and with a keen perception of ancient myths than Carter. Much of this thinking had been inbred in the Earl by his grandmother, Henrietta Howard, 3rd Countess of Carnarvon, who terrified all comers with grisly ghost stories and tales of bog creatures, something that I shared in my book “ Lordy” Tutankhamun’s Patron As A Young Man” ( 2012). Carnarvon was also susceptible on other counts at being taken in by the possible existence of another world dimension, especially after a curious experience with his close chum Prince Victor Duleep Singh in Berlin in 1893 where the boys were away jaunting about Europe together. Victor’s father, the last Maharaja of Lahore, died in Paris at the time. The apparition of the dead Maharaja Duleep Singh appeared to his son in a picture in his bed room. He told Carnarvon, who believed Victor had seen his father . The Earl was envious of his friend’s sighting and spent long parts of his life in séances ( at Highclere) trying to contact his own dead mother- who had died when he was 8 years old.
Carnarvon, Carter and Tutankhamun's lives were all cursed, as I have set out in my latest book, they were affected personally and across their overlapping lives on more down to earth factors, on account of bad genes, inbreeding and trauma during their development years. This blighted them and made them the people that they were, dysfunctional adults.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT THE AUTHOR WILLIAM CROSS