Episode 1- TUTENKAMEN

Tutenkamen - The Mystery of death

A young boy stands in a temple filled with burning incense as he waits for a priest to place a glittering crown on his head. The ritual is part of the coronation ceremony that will make the nine-year-old pharaoh of ancient Egypt. His people will call him by his royal name: King Tutankhamun. You probably know him as just King Tut.

Tut became pharaoh of Egypt in 1332 B.C. at the age of nine. He ruled the country at a time of conflict, when battles over land raged between Egypt and the neighboring kingdom of Nubia. Nearly a decade after coming to power, the young leader died at about 18. But historians didn’t know much about Tut until 1922. That’s when a British archaeologist named Howard Carter uncovered Tut’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

After finding a crypt beneath the Egyptian desert, Carter spent much of the next two years searching the tomb. But the biggest treasure was within another room in the tomb, where Carter found a coffin. The coffin opened to reveal … another coffin. Inside the second coffin was a third coffin made of gold. Inside was Tut’s mummified body, untouched for more than 3,000 years.

These picture has been blurred for people who have Pharaohphobia.

Soon after the mummy was uncovered, archaeologists tried to pry his body from the sticky sacred oils that coated the inside of his coffin. But such rough handling damaged the mummy and made it tough to tell what lead to Tut’s death.

Some suspected he was murdered, perhaps poisoned. But modern technologies like 3-D scanning eventually revealed that the powerful king was actually in poor health—and even had a broken leg. Maybe the frail king tumbled from one of the chariots found in his tomb. With his immune system already weakened, Tut could have easily died of an infection in the busted bone if the crash itself didn’t kill him.

Archaeologists aren’t quite ready to declare the mystery solved. Without records from that time period detailing exactly what happened, we may never know the whole truth about Tut’s death. But regardless of how he died, the treasures of Tut’s tomb make him the most famous mummy in the world.

Here's a preview of the next episode of the Egyptian accounts of deaths--

The Curse of the Pharaoh

The curse of the pharaohs or the mummy's curse is a curse alleged to be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, is claimed to cause bad luck, illness, or death. Since the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that the curse is 'real' in the sense of having scientifically explicable causes such as bacteria, fungi or radiation. However, the modern origins of Egyptian mummy curse tales, their development primarily in European cultures, the shift from magic to science to explain curses, and their changing uses—from condemning disturbance of the dead to entertaining horror film audiences—suggest that Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not scientific, phenomenon.[1]

The Royal Cobra (Uraeus), representing the protector goddess Wadjet, atop the mask of Tutankhamun

There are occasional instances of genuine ancient curses appearing inside or on the façade of a tomb, as in the case of the mastaba of Khentika Ikhekhi of the 6th Dynasty at Saqqara. These appear to be directed towards the ka priests to protect the tomb carefully and preserve its ritual purity rather than as a warning for potential robbers. There had been stories of curses going back to the 19th century, but they multiplied after Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Despite popular misconceptions, no curse was found inscribed in the Pharaoh's tomb.[2] The evidence for curses relating to Tutankhamun is considered to be so meager that Donald B. Redford called it "unadulterated claptrap".

Curses relating to tombs are extremely rare, possibly because the idea of such desecration was unthinkable and even dangerous to record.[2] They most frequently occur in private tombs of the Old Kingdom era.[4] The tomb of Ankhtifi (9–10th dynasty) contains the warning: "any ruler who... shall do evil or wickedness to this coffin... may Hemen ([a local deity]) not accept any goods he offers, and may his heir not inherit". The tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi (6th dynasty)[5] contains an inscription: "As for all men who shall enter this my tomb... impure... there will be judgment... an end shall be made for him... I shall seize his neck like a bird... I shall cast the fear of myself into him".[2]

Curses after the Old Kingdom era are less common though more severe, sometimes invoking the ire of Thoth or the destruction of Sekhemet.[4] Zahi Hawass quotes an example of a curse: "Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose."[6]

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