Sunday, November 02, 2008

Mummy's curse?

Londonist (Neil Arnold)

I haven't had a mummy's curse story for a long time. This one is a short story about the mummy of a singer of the priesthood of Amen-Ra at the British Museum.

When ancient tombs were disturbed in Egypt, legends of fatal curses spread like wildfire. Whether such dark whispers were true or whether any tragedies surrounding such excavations were mere coincidence, the case of Exhibit 22542 at the British Museum may warn us not to take such sinister rumours lightly.

The item in question is a mummy discovered in the latter part of the 1800s which, over time, harboured such an awful reputation that it was even blamed for the start of the war which broke out in 1914! The Egyptian mummy-case of a singer to the priesthood of Amen-Ra has allegedly caused thirteen deaths, although hardened sceptics would argue otherwise.

The body was shipped to America in the early 1900s and the boat, the Empress of Ireland duly sank at St. Lawrence, and fingers were pointed at the mummy.

See the above page for the full story.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've also heard this story. But I also heard that when the mummy was being taken into the British Museum Sir E. A. Wallis Budge had it photographed The next day when he looked at the photo he saw the face of an angry black woman in the picture. Have you ever seen this photo? And if you have, where did you find it?