The Curse of King Tutankhamun's Tomb

Summary

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
Episode: The Curse of King Tutankhamun's Tomb
Release Date: February 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this riveting episode of After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal, hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling delve deep into one of history's most enigmatic archaeological discoveries—the excavation of King Tutankhamun's tomb. Joined by esteemed Egyptologist Dr. Campbell Price, the discussion unpacks not only the historical significance of the tomb but also the enduring legend of the "Curse of the Pharaohs."

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Howard Carter and the Quest for Tutankhamun

Dr. Campbell Price sets the stage by introducing Howard Carter, a British archaeologist whose painstaking efforts in the Valley of the Kings culminated in the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.

Dr. Campbell Price (04:38): "Howard Carter, it's important to emphasize, as you said, English archaeologist, Egyptologist, antiquities dealer as well, artist, very accomplished artist. [...] He is in some ways the best placed person to find the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, when the fateful first step is revealed."

Contrary to popular belief, Carter didn't stumble upon the tomb by chance. His systematic approach, honed over years of excavation, made the discovery possible.

Maddy Pelling (06:00): "It's interesting to me that you say he's already gone on to find other tombs [...] he's part of a whole system of archaeological practice in the Valley of the Kings anyway."

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Discovery of the Tomb

The episode vividly recounts the moment Carter and his team breached the sealed outer door of Tutankhamun's tomb. The meticulous excavation process, aided by a team of skilled Egyptian workers, unveiled chambers filled with unimaginable treasures.

Anthony Delaney (08:25): "I have seen that picture where he has tool in hand and he's down there and he is surrounded by other people. So he's doing this at a distance."

This discovery was not just a triumph for Carter but also a testament to the collaborative efforts between Western archaeologists and their Egyptian counterparts, though many of the local workers remain unnamed in historical accounts.

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The Contents of the Tomb

Dr. Price provides an intricate overview of the tomb's contents, emphasizing that Tutankhamun's burial was not merely a collection of personal belongings but a meticulously arranged assortment meant to aid the Pharaoh in the afterlife.

Dr. Campbell Price (37:21): "It's a space of sacred ritual and it's a space to be left alone and to remain empty of living human beings."

From golden statues and chariots to daily-use items like furniture and even personal clothing, the tomb was a snapshot of ancient Egyptian beliefs and practices surrounding death and the afterlife.

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The Curse Narrative

A significant portion of the episode addresses the infamous "Curse of the Pharaohs," a narrative that emerged following the tomb's discovery and the subsequent deaths of several individuals associated with the excavation.

Dr. Campbell Price (49:03): "Carter is the lead person. He is the most famous archaeologist ever to have listened. He has the pub quiz."

The narrative suggests that disturbing the tomb invited misfortune, citing events like the untimely death of Lord Carnarvon, Carter's financial backer.

Dr. Campbell Price (47:36): "The story is that Carnarvon is not a man in the best of health. [...] the story goes, he gets a mosquito bite [...] and eventually dies of septicemia."

However, Dr. Price challenges the validity of the curse, attributing the deaths to natural causes and the often precarious health conditions of the individuals involved.

Dr. Campbell Price (49:59): "Actual curses, explicit curses are extremely rare in Egyptian tombs."

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Impact on Modern Perceptions and Ethical Considerations

The discussion shifts to the broader implications of the tomb's discovery, particularly regarding the distribution of ancient artifacts and the ethics surrounding their acquisition.

Maddy Pelling (54:13): "The curse helps to underpin British imperialist ideas about superstitions in this part of the world."

Dr. Price critiques the colonial mindset that justified the removal of artifacts from their homeland, highlighting how such narratives perpetuate Western dominance and disregard for Egyptian heritage.

Furthermore, the episode touches upon the ongoing fascination with Tutankhamun, likening it to modern-day obsessions that fuel both academic interest and popular culture.

Dr. Campbell Price (57:44): "Museums do not simply reflect an interest in ancient Egypt. They actively create the interest in ancient Egypt."

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Anecdotal Accounts and Personal Stories

Adding a personal dimension, Dr. Price shares an intriguing incident from his career involving a "spinning statue" at the Manchester Museum. Initially perceived as supernatural, the phenomenon was later explained through simple physical reasons, reinforcing the episode's theme of distinguishing myth from reality.

Dr. Campbell Price (58:42): "It just confirmed to me that people will associate ancient Egyptian things in particular with the unexplained, the supernatural, the threatening."

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Conclusion and Reflections

In wrapping up, Dr. Price emphasizes the enduring allure of ancient Egypt and the responsibility of modern institutions to handle its legacy ethically. The hosts reflect on how stories like the "Curse of the Pharaohs" continue to shape our understanding and appreciation of history.

Dr. Campbell Price (60:28): "The curse really is the inescapable association of pharaonic culture and the malign."

The episode serves as both a historical analysis and a critique of the myths that overshadow factual accounts, urging listeners to appreciate the true wonders of ancient civilizations beyond sensationalist tales.

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Notable Quotes

• Dr. Campbell Price (04:38): "Howard Carter [...] becomes the most famous archaeologist ever to have lived."
• Maddy Pelling (06:00): "He's part of a whole system of archaeological practice in the Valley of the Kings."
• Anthony Delaney (08:25): "He's doing this at a distance."
• Dr. Campbell Price (37:21): "It's a space of sacred ritual and it's a space to be left alone."
• Dr. Campbell Price (49:03): "Carter is the lead person. He is the most famous archaeologist ever to have listened."
• Dr. Campbell Price (58:42): "People will associate ancient Egyptian things in particular with the unexplained, the supernatural."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of After Dark masterfully navigates the intricate blend of history, mythology, and cultural implications surrounding the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. Through expert insights and engaging storytelling, Anthony Delaney, Maddy Pelling, and Dr. Campbell Price invite listeners to reconsider the legends that intertwine with historical events, fostering a deeper understanding of both the past and its portrayal in modern narratives.

Transcript

[Anthony Delaney]

Hi, we're your hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling, and if you would like After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal ad free and get early access.

[Maddy Pelling]

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[Anthony Delaney]

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[Dr. Campbell Price]

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[Narrator]

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[Anthony Delaney]

The sun beats down on the beginning of the season in the Valley of the Kings. Only in the winter does the temperature dip enough to allow for tourism and, more importantly, excavation. But at 2pm on November 26, 1922, it's still very hot all around. The sounds of tools against hard earth have ceased. Anyone who isn't assembled around the ancient stairway cut into the ground is watching silently from afar. At the bottom of the steps, through a sealed outer door and down a passageway cleared of debris over the last few weeks, British Egyptologist Howard Carter, a man in his late 40s, is focused on the task at hand. Trembling, he makes a tiny hole in the top left hand corner of the door and with an iron testing rod, tests its depth. It passes straight through. There is a space there, one that isn't packed with rubble. A chamber, perhaps, as he tests the air for fell gases and widens the hole to glimpse inside the chamber. The candle flickers as A rush of air escapes. Now, exact numbers vary, but within a decade of Howard Carter's discovery, several of those present will have died from mysterious illnesses and strange accidents. Others, gifted with loot from the tomb will be blighted with fire and flood. As this heir, which escapes from its centuries long burial beneath the bedrock of Egypt, is finally exhaled from the earth, what terrible curse might it bring with it?

[Maddy Pelling]

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie.

[Anthony Delaney]

And I'm Anthony.

[Maddy Pelling]

And today we are joined by Dr. Campbell Price. Now, Campbell is curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, which is part of the University of Manchester and it holds one of the UK's most significant Egyptology collections. Is that right, Campbell?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

It does. Of course I'm biased.

[Maddy Pelling]

You would say that.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

I would say that. But outside the British Museum's collection and the Patriot Museum at ucl, I'd say it's the biggest and most significant in Britain. Yes.

[Maddy Pelling]

So today we're going to be talking about the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun. And I think most people, certainly I did this at school, I think I know something of the story. We're going to get into it a bit more, but let's just start with the basics. Who is doing the searching? We heard in this opening scene that the tomb is being excavated. They're breaking into it. Who's doing that?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So first of all, this is the kind of quintessential dictionary definition archaeological find. It's Tutankhamun's tomb. Howard Carter, it's important to emphasize, as you said, English archaeologist, Egyptologist, antiquities dealer as well, artist, very accomplished artist. He goes to Egypt as a teenager, he's of very modest means. He's sent by the Egypt Exploration Fund Now Society, which I'm very pleased to be the current chair of trustees of the Egypt Exploration Society. And another great Egyptologist, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie says this boy Carter, he's a good artist, but will never train him up as an excavator. He becomes the most famous archaeologist ever to have lived. He has worked in the Valley of the Kings, this massive cemetery, desert cemetery, for decades. People imagine Carter just wandering along and then just finds the tomb of Tutankhamun. He doesn't. He's been looking for it for years. He knows and has found several other tombs which have included and contained other bits which he goes on to find in complete, well preserved form in the tomb of Tutankhamun. And so he is in some ways the best place person to find the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, when the fateful first step is revealed.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's interesting to me that you say he's already gone on to find other tombs, because I know what you mean about he's sort of the quintessential blueprint archaeologist. He's the person that we think of. He's every answer to every pop quiz question ever. And the fact that I suppose in this narrative, this mythologized version of the story, he just happens upon the tomb and he breaks into it and all this stuff is preserved perfectly, it's all incredible. But actually he's part of a whole system of archaeological practice in the Valley of the Kings anyway. And he's been there for a long time doing that. That's absolutely fascinating. So what does he expect to find? You see, he's been searching for the tomb for a while. Why this particular tomb? What's he hoping to find there?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So there's a list of kings that ruled at the time. The Valley of the Kings was used as a cemetery. So you can tick them off. And most of them have been found and there is a gap under the name Tutankhamun. Now, Tutankhamun, you know, in ancient times, he rules for nine years. He comes to the throne probably when he's only 9 or 10. So he's a teenager when he dies. Of course, this is only revealed when his body is found. And it's possible to say how old he was when he died. He lived at a very interesting time, 14th century BC. His dad, probably his dad, his father was by any measure a bit of a weirdo when it comes to Egyptian kings. He revolutionized the way the king presented himself. He shot down all the worship of Egypt's many gods and then decided, right, there's only one God, the sun God, the Aten, and I am his sole prophet. So Tutankhamun kind of resets the official position in Egypt, you know, mid 14th century BC. And he's buried after a reign of nine years. But because he's associated with this so called heretic, he's left off the official list of great kings of Egypt. So 200 years later, in the time of Ramses II, Ramses the Great Tutankhamun doesn't appear on the official list. So if you were trying to do an itemized list, he's not there. So Carter knows this. Carter knows of his existence and realizes his tomb hasn't definitely been found. And incidentally, Carter himself is not troweling or pickaxing. It's a whole team of skilled Egyptian workers who Whose names are lost, who are basically lost.

[Anthony Delaney]

I didn't even really. I knew that, but I assumed that he was at least down with them and going through that process with them. But. Because I've seen the picture, which we'll talk about some of the pictures later in the episode, but I've seen that picture where he has tool in hand and he's down there and he is surrounded by other people. So he's doing this at a distance.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Slightly, yes. In common with other European Western archaeologists of the time, he's directing. He is very good at strategizing, as you said. He plans out a kind of a grid system. And so he works through the grid. And so there's this apocryphal tale that his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, who will come on to talk about funds. So many seasons they don't find anything spectacular and Carnarvon wants something or nothing. And Carter offers to fund with his own money from antique stealing. One final season and eventually Carnarvon agrees to that.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's a film plot, it's like a movie. The one last chance we've got a big, you know, sort of faceless money backer in the background.

[Anthony Delaney]

Faceless money backer?

[Maddy Pelling]

Faceless money backer.

[Anthony Delaney]

That's the name of this episode. Can I just check something with this? Is he, therefore you say, he knows that Tutankham's tomb is there somewhere in that last ditch attempt, is he looking to find Tutankhamun specifically, or will any big old find do?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

I think any big old find would do, but I think he has Tutankhamen in mind.

[Maddy Pelling]

So, two questions about the sort of technicalities of how he finds the tomb. First of all, I want to just ask. You said that he uses a grid system. Is that the kind of the same grid system that archaeologists use today in terms of plotting trenches, or is this on a much bigger scale, like thinking about the whole landscape? How is that working?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Good question. I think it's on a bigger scale. It's not just in terms of.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's not just bits of string, this is not one frame.

[Anthony Delaney]

Mortimer Wheeler.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

And, you know, you might imagine, like British archaeology with lots of mud, there's lots of sand, it is extremely hilly there. Because what you're working through is not just the natural landscape. This is the fun bit. It's the spoil heaps of archaeologists before you dug out other tombs. So what you're seeing is like a lunar landscape beneath all the rubble. The Valley of the Kings being a valley, being a wadi, as it's called. In Arabic is subject to occasional flash flooding. And it seems not long after Tutankhamun's tomb was sealed, one of these flash floods comes along and picks up the dust, which, when wet, goes like cement and seals the tomb at the bottom of the Valley of the Kings. So you've got a historical circumstance. Tutankhamun's not on the official list. You've got this kind of geological chance. It's at the bottom of the Valley of the Kings and you've had this weather event that's sealed it, and you've.

[Maddy Pelling]

Got these two different competing stories in the landscape. You've got the ancient Egyptian history and then you have the history of the archaeologists who have changed that environment. And you have to, as an archaeologist, be able to read that as well and literally and in terms of the archive, dig through it and understand it in order to find what you're looking for. So how do they find the tomb in the end?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

They basically systematically move one pile of rubble over and then start in another. You sometimes read about clearance down to bedrock. They clear down to a point where the kind of set mud of one of these floods has been reached. And it is, according to the story, an Egyptian water boy, a regular person, member of the team, the big Egyptian team, that sets down, supposedly the water jar for the day and finds the edge of a step that's not natural. And that rest is history.

[Anthony Delaney]

First of all, that landscape that you're describing sounds like a history heaven, slightly like you're literally stumbling over debris from these incredible discoveries. But you mentioned somebody else that's in the mix there, and it's the 5th Earl of Carnarvon and he is playing a part in this as well. Again, not necessarily out digging or discovering or brushing. So what's he doing? What role is he playing?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Well, he's the sponsor, because to do archaeology in Egypt at that time, and really, at any time, you need to employ lots of people to move the rubble and that's expensive. So at that time in the 1920s, you needed a moneyed backer. And so Carnarvon meets Carter. Carter, of fairly modest means, no formal education, no university degree. He subsequently gets honorary degrees, but he's never studied at a university. He's an artist, as I said, a dealer, and a kind of in between guy. And so he makes the acquaintance of Carnarvon, who's a bit older, is a major British aristocrat at the time, very closely linked to the big moneyed families, to the royal family. Now, it's worth saying, for what I Think we're going to go on to discuss. Lord Carnarvon was never in the best of health with his friends.

[Maddy Pelling]

Spoilers.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Spoiler alert. With his friends, when he's very young, late teens, early 20s, where they might be going off doing some military training, he's a bit too judged to be too weak. So he makes friends with this very interesting guy called Prince Victor Duleep Singh, who is related to the Maharajah of Lahore and has incredible connections of his own. And these two have a close friendship, get up to no good. Instead of going to war. Lord Carnarvon contracts syphilis. They do things that are not going into the army, but there is the.

[Maddy Pelling]

Plenty of that in the army as well.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Indeed, indeed. But there's this impression of George Herbert, ultimately the Earl of Carnarvon, not being in the peak of health at any point in his life. So he is an early adopter of the motor car, so he likes motor car racing. And he gets into an accident, is quite badly injured and is told, you need to rest and you need a good climate. And the British climate is not ideal in the winter, so it often goes for aristocrats who've got TB and respiratory conditions. The dry air is meant to be good. So Carnarvon goes to Egypt and then, as a hobbyist, takes up archaeology. An interest in archaeology. But he would, as you rightly say, he's not the one digging. He is put in touch with someone like Carter, who can contract a team to do the digging.

[Maddy Pelling]

There's so many interesting layers there, aren't there, of the sort of performance of masculinity in the period, but also the performance of class, the performance of colonialism in Egypt itself. And it's sort of fascinating, all these layers of this story that come together in this one moment. So we have the stage set, we've explored the landscape, we've got the money in place. Carter and his team of Egyptians who are disappeared from the records, or certainly in terms of the story as it's sort of typically told, they're all working really hard. The waterboy supposedly finds the first step, traces the line of the step, and soon they are looking at the entrance to a tomb.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Yes. So they're looking at a staircase, and staircases tend to lead.

[Maddy Pelling]

I refuse to believe that this isn't a film.

[Anthony Delaney]

I know, it's really filmic.

[Maddy Pelling]

This is just a script.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So they're then faced with a plastered, sealed door. So the door has the impression of a seal from ancient times with the seal of the necropolis, which is a Jackal over nine bound enemies.

[Maddy Pelling]

Campbell, I'm not gonna lie. I would see that and I would turn around, I'd be like, I have no business.

[Anthony Delaney]

You'd come too far. You were not gonna be like, we found it, I'll leave it there. Now off I go. You get digging.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Go.

[Maddy Pelling]

No, I would have got off the plane and Egypt and been like, this is too hot for me. Going back immediately. Okay, sorry. So we've come across this pretty terrifying imagery immediately.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

I should add. All of this is happening in kind of slow time because there wasn't much in the way of plane travel. Sure. So Lord Carnarvon is not even there. He's in England at Highclere Castle, which has since become very famous for Downton Abbey as the location for that. So Carter immediately sends this famous telegram saying, found a staircase, found a door with seals intact. Doesn't matter that you can't really read what the seals say. The Valley of the Kings is not just for anybody, any Tom, Dick or Harry to be buried in. It is for kings and queens of a 500 year period known as the New Kingdom. If you find a sealed door, the chances are you're looking at an intact royal tomb. Well, so Carter, remember, has been doing this for years and years. So he sends off the telegram, you know, congratulations. No, it's ready for your arrival. So, of course, Carnarvon get straight on the bolt.

[Maddy Pelling]

Is that not a little bit premature? I mean, he's really. You say there's a good chance there's a royal tomb behind, but that's quite a move from Carter. He's quite sure of himself to say, get over here. This is happening.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

He is, and I think he is confident and a bit cocky in a sense, at that point. Later on, he will experimentally have a look to make sure there's something.

[Maddy Pelling]

Just a quick check. Yeah.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

If he's gonna. Because he's had an experience, at least one experience, where he's invited, you know, great dignitaries, and then the thing that he's found has not been as spectacular to him, at least as expected. So Carnarvon shows up, they take down the first sealed doorway. They find a corridor filled with rubble, but there's a hole through the corridor. Someone has got in before them. So there's a sense of excitement, but of potential disappointment. The outer wall, the outer doorway is sealed or resealed, as it turns out, not from the original burial party.

[Maddy Pelling]

So this is an animal intervention. This isn't something burying down, as often happens on, like, Neolithic burial mounds in Britain. You Know you get that kind of disturbance.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

This is human activity. So that I mentioned the seal of the necropolis and this comes back later on. And to us maybe it is an ominous image of a jackal over nine bound captives. Because ancient Egyptian iconography and ideology, state level ideology, is pretty belligerent. Like a lot of state level ideology, the king is a sphinx, he's a lion, he's a hybrid creature who's going to maul the enemies of the state. So there's this idea that the jackal represents secrecy, not threat, but things that are only for the initiated to know. And this is a secret because the secret is the king's tomb. So eventually they get to a second doorway which is completely sealed. They've cleared the corridor of rubble. The Egyptian team has. And that is the fateful moment with the metal bar and the candle going in. And in Carter's diary, it's a slightly different wording than the famous. What can you see? Wonderful things.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, speaking of seeing wonderful things, I have a picture in front of me and usually Maddy and I take it upon ourselves to describe this picture. And I know we're getting you to work extra hard by passing this over to you, but I think you're probably better placed to tell us exactly what's happening here, because I feel like this is the moment you're describing, or close to it anyway.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

This is a couple of months after that moment. Ah. So what you're seeing is Carter and Carnarvon together. They were rarely pictured together, given they become such a famous duo in archaeology. So what you're seeing is the literally very staged opening of another interior door. I see, to the burial chamber. So upon the famous seeing the wonderful things, Carter says it's like the props room of some forgotten opera because there are strange animals, there are statues, there is furniture, and everything pretty much is covered in gold.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, let's pause on that for a second because that must have felt so dissonant. And it feels so dissonant to me looking at the photos. And we're going to go talk about the photograph of the interior of the tomb, but they look like they were made yesterday. They are in such fantastic condition. And when we think about especially romantic archaeology, archeology in the early 20th century and this age of sort of golden glamour and colonialism and all of this, that we think of these especially talking about cinema as well, these fragmented forms, these broken, dusty objects, things that can be pieced back together. And the brokenness and the wear and tear is the charm of them.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Yes.

[Maddy Pelling]

And I just wonder what it would have felt like. I mean, it's interesting that he says it's like going into an opera house. It's like something not real, it's like a performed other world. And of course it was a sort of stage set for the Egyptians themselves.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Right.

[Maddy Pelling]

But going into that as a 20th century person must have felt completely surreal.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Yeah, yes, exactly. I think for Carter, he says, you know, 33 centuries had passed. He has a very. In the write up, he has a very romantic turn of phrase with the help of other people like Arthur Mace, who made his writing more literary. But to be that person, to imagine that moment of putting the candle in and thinking, bloody hell.

[Anthony Delaney]

And they know this is important because just to come back to these pictures that we have here. So for the listeners, we have some black and white photos and in the first one that Campbell was describing, we have two men standing in the centre of the photo and around them, and I hadn't imagined this for myself. There is kind of wood paneling leading into one of the rooms.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Yes.

[Anthony Delaney]

And this wood paneling, to me seems like it's supporting everything, keeping everything in place, keeping things as it should be. So it's safe, I guess, or relatively safe. I am wrong by the look on your face. Well, tell me what it is. Tell me what it is.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

I'm so glad you've asked about this particular image because it often gets skipped past in the narrative to get something else. So what you're seeing is the so called antechamber. This is the first room full of stuff, funerary furniture that they encounter. They clear all of that out. Carter, as I say, has worked in other royal tombs which were all robbed, completely robbed, but he has found fragments of the thrones, the chariots, the beds, all of the stuff. He knows what to expect.

[Maddy Pelling]

He's had a tiny taste of what's.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

To come, which is, as I say, would have given him a particular insight. But what you cannot see in this photo because they are very strangely, from a modern conservation point of view, hidden by paneling are these two statues of the king that are described as eerie sentinels. Now, these are two pieces from the tomb that absolutely fascinate me. So they are known again from other tombs. They represent the king, or a sense of the king, maybe his spirit, an aspect of his spirit. So they show him with a staff in one hand and a mace in the other, with one foot advanced, as is standard in Egyptian art. They're covered in black resin and all the details are of the costuming and the jewelry picked out in gold. And these were meant to be, in a sense, ways for the king to experience rituals. And they may have been used for rituals during the lifetime even of the king and then they're buried with him. But in the colonial atmosphere of 1920s Egyptology, yes, this is very glamorous, but undoubtedly from the very moment the tomb is found, there is a sense of threat. And these are pictured as, and are still referred to as the guardian statues. There is no ancient function that says that they're guarding anything. But their placement, their coloring, a racist interpretation of the black skin of the figures and their general situation is interpreted as threatening.

[Anthony Delaney]

Wow.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So it is very odd, as someone who works in a museum, that these incredibly precious pieces are still in position and they're covered in paneling. The reason this is done is because Carter and Carnarvon in this image are literally on a stage. The stage is covering a hole that they made, which they secretly used to check if the tomb was in fact intact. So not only is the whole photographic business here staged and performative, the opening of that door in front of dignitaries in the antechamber when this was going on, that is quite literally staged.

[Anthony Delaney]

Wow.

[Maddy Pelling]

What's happening in real time then is the discovery is still going on, they're still opening up the tomb, or maybe not two months on, but they're certainly presumably cataloguing things, exploring what's in there, thinking about the space, learning it, and they're trying to work out the story that Tutum Khamun was trying to tell with this space, or that his subjects trying to tell of its lies and that narrative. But then there's another narrative that's being added onto that. There's the narrative of Carter as the discoverer and Carnarvon as a sort of accomplice to that, as the architect of it in lots of ways. But there's something there about the interpretation of this material. It's already taking on, as you say, a colonial flavor, a superstitious or a slightly sinister flavor, thinking about those guardian statues and that they are threatening in some way, or they're interpreted as that anyway. And that's so interesting to me that you have, we talked earlier about the sort of layers of the landscape and all those different histories. And these are just more and more layers, and they're layers being told physically in that space in terms of what's being preserved, what's maybe being put at risk. And those decisions obviously have longer term impacts, but also told in terms of modern technology, you've got the Photographs, obviously, you've got Carter's writings that, as you say, are sort of hammed up and made more literary and palatable for a reading public back home in Britain. You have all these technologies and these art forms that are just constantly shape shifting as this is unfolding on the ground. And it's still such a new discovery, it's such a sort of hybrid and exciting thing that you can look at from all these different angles. It's fascinating.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Exactly. It's a crucible of experimentation in archeology because, as you say, it's a new technology even to photograph things. We're 19, 22, 23. And so Carter employs this chap called Harry Burton, who's actually based in New York, and he produces these really iconic images using hidden light sources, which even I remember being a little boy and a great aunt giving me a reprint, a 1970s reprint of Carter's book, the Tomb of Tutankhamun.

[Maddy Pelling]

You had no chance, Campbell.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Oh, I just had to be an Egyptologist. And in the book, and still today, if you see those images, there is something quite cold and clinical about them. If they were in color, maybe they might have been more, you know, glamorous and like glitzy. It's cold, it's. It's in many ways self consciously scientific. And this is always a tale of not just two stories, but several narratives. One is Carter himself is aware of the importance of recording this find and he records it in such detail. And he trusts and employs a close team of Egyptian colleagues who he is personally very close to. They may not make it to the final, full, grand, singular narrative of heroic white archaeologist, but Karter is clearly very well embedded with his Egyptian colleagues. But then he makes, well, Carnarvon, I should say, makes a spectacular miscalculation in selling the exclusive rights to the story, basically in photographs taken by Burton to the Times of London. So the people of Egypt have to hear the news of this find in their own country, secondhand, from a British newspaper. All the other British newspapers are understandably ticked off. And that might be the origin of the curse narrative in this case, where it is the rival newspapers who are starved of the oxygen of actual news, who are thinking, oh, well, we'd better come up with some other thing to sell newspapers. And that especially in the case of a guy called Arthur Weigel, who's a British archaeologist who worked in the Valley of the Kings and may actually have found Tutankhamun had he stayed there a bit longer, who knows? He works, I think, for the Daily Mail. He's the Egypt correspondent. He witnesses the opening of that inner burial chamber wall, and he speculates about Lord Carnarvon as being so offhand about this. Something terrible is going to happen to him. And sure enough, in whatever it is, six weeks he's dead. I would say there's a general colonial angst about going somewhere you're not invited. There's a Freudian metaphor there, but then the guardian statues play into that. But then for Tutankhamun in particular, and especially around the death of Carnarvon, it is rival newspaper people who want to make a story because they resent not having the access to the official findings. Foreign.

[Paige Desorbo]

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[Narrator]

Get ready for your next True Crime binge.

It's all a blur. My Aunt Ilsa called me and she just said, get to the hospital. The doctor came in and told us that there's really not much more that they could do for her and that we need to go say goodbye.

This doesn't happen to people like me. A new True Crime 10 part series from the makers of Sword and Scale launches March 3rd. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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[Tristan Hughes]

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum? Find out on the Ancients Podcast from History, hit twice a week. Join me Tristan Hughes as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans? And visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History Hit.

[Maddy Pelling]

So we're gonna come on to talk about the curse and what happens to Lor Caernarfon or what doesn't happen based on the curse. Let's just talk a little bit about the loot first, because you mentioned there, Campbell, this colonial anxiety. I mean, it doesn't stop them going into the tomb, but it is present in the narrative in terms of their behavior on the ground. And they're going into a space that has been, as far as the ancient Egyptians, who created it and who sealed it up. And obviously there's maybe question marks around people having been in some of that space in the century since. But for all intents and purposes, it is a funerary space. It's a space of sacred ritual and it's a space to be left alone and to remain empty of living human beings. And they're going into that and they're coming across incredible items and they are coming into contact with them, but maybe also taking them as well. So before we talk about that, I'm gonna make Anthony describe a photograph of. I think it's a pretty famous one. I certainly recognise this photo. So this is the antechamber again, isn't it, with some items in. So, Anthony, tell us what we're looking at.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, I have never seen this photo before, but funnily enough, it looks to me like it's my granny's shed. It is full of stuff. Now, the disadvantage, I think. Campbell, you were talking about this earlier. The disadvantage of this, I think, is that it looks. Is because it's in black and white to me, and my bad eyesight looks like a jumble of stuff. It looks like there's some old stuff in a room and people have not been taking care of it. However, look a little bit more closely and you see chests. You can see part of a carriage, I think a chariot, potentially. Yeah. I see some wheels. I see stools. I see what looks like maybe some form of big animal. Big dogs, big cats, big lions, maybe. I'm guessing. And, yeah, it's like a jumble sale gone wrong. You are going to tell me if you came across this stuff in a jumble sale. Buy absolutely everything that you can get your hands on. I understand that, but to the eye, it looks like stuff in a room.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

But I think you're getting back to Carter's observation that, like, it's a jumble from a prop store.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Of a no prop or like a theatrical production, which, as we've said, is true to an extent. This is a secret. It was not, as Maddy said, meant to be seen by profane eyes. It was buried with the king, the dead king who was being transformed into a God. So the religious purpose of it was not. It's not everything but the kitchen sink to use in the afterlife. I think people often assume that it's objects that had been used by the king during his lifetime. His sandals, his clothing, his underwear. Over 100 pairs of underwear that he'd used. Not because he needed them in the afterlife, because in the afterlife he's going to be a God and gods don't need underwear, but because the king of Egypt was thought to be at least semi divine. Anything that touched the divine person was sacred and could not be thrown away. They're literally imbued with the magic of that person. I think that was true. So Carter knew when he found it that this was the sort of thing he would expect because, as I said, he'd found fragments of these pieces. But they are all objects which help transform the king into full godly status or help him in the journey to the afterlife. It's not simply things for him to use. There were tools, there was a fire lighting set. There are musical instruments, there are games, there are beds, there are other bits of furniture, there's clothing. There's a whole wardrobe that even though in artistic depictions which are generally not to be trusted, in ancient Egypt, you would imagine the king always wore like bright white linen garments. There are full on Hollywood style costumes, feathered capes. Where are they now? They're very badly degraded, but they're now in Cairo. So the other point to make in encountering this tomb of four chambers that's stuffed full of things, it is not as the burial party originally left it, because there have been at least two.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes. So I was going to ask this that. I mean, just in terms of looking at that space, you can see the chariot has. It looks like it's been a bit of an accident. Is that just the effect of time and these things sort of eroding in that space without human intervention? Plus some robberies as well. What's actually. It looks like a bit of a car crash. It looks like in Friends, Monica's secret cupboard that she puts everything in and she tells.

[Anthony Delaney]

You know, she's looking at me like, I know what you're talking about. I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Maddy Pelling]

I figure Anthony's not watched any TV or film despite being an actor on TV and film. Look, it's like the cupboard. When you tell your husband that the house is Tidy and you've tidied up and it's like, oh, no, don't. Don't open that door. And then you open it and everything.

[Anthony Delaney]

I see, I see, I see.

[Maddy Pelling]

Presumably it wasn't left like that by the ancient Egyptians.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

It doesn't seem so. And so Carter actually records that there are the boxes, the chests, the caskets that you can see in that photo have little dockets, little labels that say, this contains four gold rings. Six. Yeah. All the itemized things that it was meant to have taken that were meant to have gone in from the palace when things were being packed up. So clearly someone has been in. They have stolen linen, they have stolen unguents. One of my favourite words, perfumed oils and kind of substances. And I think that's the kind of stuff that would decay quite quickly. So the robbery seems to have happened. There was even the finger marks in one of the nice vases where someone had scooped out the king's face cream or whatever. And I think what we see now in that photograph and what Carter and the team found was both a well set out group of objects which had simply partly fallen apart through three and a half thousand years. Partly it was the mess of the tomb robbers going in and having a rummage, a good old rummage, and partly it was how the original burial party left it, really. So it does seem quite jumbled. The thing about the jumble is Tutankhamun, being the only king whose tomb really survives intact from ancient Egypt, had one of the smallest tombs. So they're trying to pack in stuff which would normally be distributed throughout several sizable halls. Yeah, you can see into small rooms.

[Maddy Pelling]

You can see things organized quite neatly, but it's not very aesthetic. There's no interior design going on here. Things aren't nicely placed. You know, there's a chest that's sort of on top of what looks like a table or something. It looks like we've run out of room on the floor. Right, we'll just pop it up there. Yeah, it's a sort of game of Tetris, really, which is. It seems a little bit unritualistic to a certain extent.

[Anthony Delaney]

One thing, though, the thieves would have been really easy to catch because their skin would have been immaculate because they're grabbing that thing and then they just. That's how you catch them. So I'm sure they ended up on a 25. Yeah. So is it really a curse if you got great skin? I don't know. Jury is out, so.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, let's talk a little bit more about this curse then? Because what that suggests to me, if there were robbers in ancient Egyptian times, that there is a variation in terms of belief in the afterlife and in the spirit of the dead person in that space. But this does continue into the Egypt of the 1920s. Or is this something that Westerners that Europeans are reading about in terms of ancient Egyptian beliefs and taking it as their own superstition in relation to this case? Or when they open the tomb, are all the Egyptians who've been working so hard excavating it, do they all step back and say, I'm not going in there, we don't want to touch things. Is this made up by the times?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

I don't think this is entirely made up by the times. Short answer, tomb robbery has been endemic since the tombs were being built. That is human nature. It is true of the human condition. Naturally, and let's be absolutely explicit about this, it was advantageous for the British colonial rulers of Egypt to say, oh, the natives can't be trusted with these treasures. We, the scientific archaeologists, will come in and save this. And that is the other important point to make at this stage in talking about this. When Carter and Carnarvon were removing the objects from the antechamber, they were sometimes taking them to another tomb, the so called laboratory tomb, which was much bigger, standard royal tomb, empty, and it was where they did a lot of conservation work. Then that material was then put on a boat and then taken up to Cairo to the National Museum. At that time, it was assumed, perhaps in common with previous excavations, that the explorer, the archaeologist, the Brett, would take 50% of the finds and they would come to London or maybe to New York.

[Anthony Delaney]

The individual, yes.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So the archaeologist, as Standard between the mid-1880s up until even the 1970s, was entitled to a share of fines.

[Maddy Pelling]

And of course, in the 18th century, they absolutely felt they were entitled to it, even if it wasn't official and very much did take those things.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Indeed, this is a law which is often referred to as the partage system. So it's called fines division or partage, English or French term for a system thought up by, you guessed it, the English and the French. And in that system, notionally, the best things stayed in Cairo Museum, the National Museum in the capital in Cairo. And then things which were thought to be surplus to requirements were given to the archaeologist. Now, in the case of Tutankhamun's tomb, it was so chock full of incredible things, even the surplus. The surplus, the duplicates were incredible. And there is no question Carter pocketed stuff for himself, for Carnarvon, it's very clear. So Carter, like so many of these or any historical character, is complex. He was close with his Egyptian workmen, even though he may have denied their existence in official publications. He was very methodical and careful and meticulous. But also he sold the rights to a British newspaper to. To represent it to the world. And he expected and was disappointed by the decision by the newly formed Nationalist Egyptian government in the wake of a partial liberation from British rule in 1920. Two months before the tomb was found, it was ruled that because this was in fact an intact royal tomb, even though there had been a couple of robberies, it was judged as intact. And so the whole contents for property of the State of the Egyptian state.

[Maddy Pelling]

So Howard Carter really wants to. I agree that he's a complex figure. I think his motivation seems to be predominantly to write himself into the narrative from whatever intention. He does want to be part of that story and he does sort of insert himself into that. So we've heard about Carter and where he figures in the arc of this story. But let's hear a little bit more now about Lord Carnarvon and what happens to him.

[Narrator]

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For your next True crime binge.

It's all a blur. My Aunt Ilsa called me and she just said, get to the hospital. The doctor came in and told us that there's really not much more that they could do for her and that we need to go say goodbye.

[Anthony Delaney]

This.

[Narrator]

This doesn't happen to people like me. A new True Crime 10 part series from the makers of Sword and scale launches March 3. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

[Anthony Delaney]

The streets of Cairo were heaving despite the early hour. Horse drawn carriages and automobiles vied for space on the road roads. Car horns honk, men shout at one another and salesmen hawk their wares to those out late or very, very early. Rising above this cacophony is the imposing facade of the Continental Savoy Hotel. Tall columns frame the entrance. Ornately carved and empty balconies await the day. All is still, except for the fine curtains fluttering out of the doors open to the breeze. Only a couple of rooms are lit at this very early hour, and one of these is that of George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. The Earl has a high fever. He shivers and sweats, his breath quick and shallow. An infected mosquito bite throbs in his face as he labours for breath. Through the pain, his breath's increasingly shallow. A final breath leaves his body then, and as his eyes go dark, so too does his room. In fact, at that moment, all of Cairo Pharaoh is engulfed in darkness as a power failure sweeps the city. In England, at Highclere Castle, a dog howls. Just a month and a half after witnessing the opening of Tutankhamun's burial chamber, Lord Carnarvon is dead. Now, could he be the victim of the Pharaoh's curse?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes, I buy it completely at the end. I love that his dog howls back in Highclere.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Is that real?

[Anthony Delaney]

Is that. Do they say that that happened?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Right, let's get into this. So the stage is set for really something dramatic to happen. So we've had lots of dramatic things and I think that story I told you about Arthur Weigel, the Egyptologist, rival journalist who's present at the opening of the burial chamber. He says, you know, Carnarvon's jocularity will get him into trouble, something will befall him, and sure enough, you know, Carnarvon is not an Egyptologist, he's a hobbyist. So he maybe looks at things in a slightly different way and he's maybe.

[Maddy Pelling]

Not welcome in that community in the same way that a more professional person might be.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Indeed, he's sold the story quite literally to the Times to recoup the cost that he's outlaid for digging all this stuff up. The story goes, he gets a mosquito bite. Remember, he's not a man in the best of health. Anyway, he gets the mosquito bite when he's in the very south of Egypt. Again, accounts vary. He's at another fancy hotel in Aswan, down in the south. He gets sufficiently unwell from having nicked this bite while shaving that he goes to Cairo, to the Savoy Hotel, and it's there he eventually dies of septicemia. When he dies, so the story goes, it is said that his dog howls and drops down dead.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, the dog dies too.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Dog dies, apparently at Highclere Castle in England, and this is sometimes attributed by the Herbert family to a Scottish maid. And, you know, the Celts are particularly credulous. So, you know, if someone's Irish, Welsh or Scottish, they must be superstitious. Anyway, the thing about the lights going out in Cairo, this happened all the time. Various other permutations or extrapolations come from. This one is that Howard Carter's pet canary gets killed.

[Anthony Delaney]

There's always a pet canary.

[Maddy Pelling]

There's a lot of animal death in this episode, more than expected.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So the story is that pet canary gets killed by a cobra. Now, the cobra is quintessentially the symbol of pharaonic power. It spits fire and poison at pharaoh's enemies. One of my favorites that can be debunked, I think, from an Egyptological point of view, is the story of a clay tablet with the words death shall come on swift wings to whoever will disturb the tomb of a pharaoh. Actual curses, explicit curses are extremely rare in Egyptian tombs. I could name a handful from much earlier times, a thousand years before Tutankhamun came to the throne. And one occurs on a tomb of one of the pyramid builders at Giza. And it was excavated by an Egyptian archaeologist, very famous Egyptian archaeologist called Professor Zahi Hawass. He is now in his 80s. It's been 20 years since he found that tomb and, you know, he's fine.

[Maddy Pelling]

But did he sell the story to the Times and take all the treasure?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

No. And this is something I've been thinking about recently. There are a couple of instances of curses in tombs around the time of Tutankhamun and they threaten anyone who comes into the tomb and does something to damage, deliberately attack the name or the memory of the deceased. And the curse is basically that you will not be remembered, you will not be famous. Now, Howard Carter is the lead person. He is the most famous archaeologist ever to have listened. He has the pub quiz.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Question, answer.

[Anthony Delaney]

I remember him from primary school.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

If that was the intent of the curse, then it singularly failed. And then.

[Anthony Delaney]

So there's these other. I have a list here in front of me of other people who are potentially. We won't concentrate too much on everybody because there's actually too many of them. But we have.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's compelling evidence in and of itself, though. Right.

[Anthony Delaney]

We have Archibald Douglas Reid, who is a radiologist at St. Thomas's go on. Yay or nay? Nay.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Because he was an early experimenter in X rays, and X rays involved radiation and he'd been ill with cancer, sadly.

[Anthony Delaney]

Before the tomb was found, we have Prince Ali Kamel Faime Bey, shot by his wife.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Very tangential to the whole Tutankhamma story.

[Anthony Delaney]

Okay, great. Ser Lee Stack.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Oh, the governor of the Anglo Egyptian Sudan is killed in 1924. It is, yes. No, no, he's totally unconnected with the tomb.

[Anthony Delaney]

And then we've talked about Arthur Mace already, so what about Arthur Mace? He was part of Carter's team during the excavation.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Yes, Potentially murdered. He is an established Egyptologist long before Tutankhamun's tomb is discovered. Mace, I think, dies in 1928 and he's the closest, probably apart from Carnarvon, to the finding and promulgation of the story of the tomb. But even so, I mean, that's six years after. If you were a vengeful pharaoh, I think you could be more direct.

[Maddy Pelling]

There's a non death, it says in my notes of Ser Bruce Ingram, who is someone who is a recipient of a paperweight from Carter that is said to be made from a mummified hand and has a scarab bracelet on it. So he's supposedly got items from the tomb, presumably sat on his desk, if it's a paperweight and he doesn't die.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

So I think it's worth emphasizing that even before Tutankhamun's tomb is found, there is, There's a great currency in Egyptian curse stories. So you've got Edgar Allan Poe is writing about reanimated mummies.

[Maddy Pelling]

You've got the Mr. James story that was done on BBC recently. Yeah, I can't think what it's called, but that was well before Howard Carter. I mean, Mr. James, late 19th, early 20th century.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Right, yeah, yeah, that late Victorian Gothic horror. Even Arthur Conan Doyle, who himself was a big imperialist and had opinions about the Egyptians, modern Egyptians.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, he had opinions on a lot of things.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

He supposedly gets off a ship in New York in 1922, sorry, 23 hears of Carnarvon's death and is quoted as saying, oh, but of course, this was the work of elementals from the tombs, you know, supernatural entities that Carnarvon shouldn't have been messing with. So I think the core of the curse myth undoubtedly revolves around Carnarvon's rather untimely death. He's only in his 50s, but he's not a well man. Add to that a general air of interest at the time amongst Egyptologists in spiritualism. That was definitely happening in the 20s. And then you've got the rival put out journalists who want something to write about and, yeah, it makes for quite a heady cocktail that has clearly persisted in the literature since. So I think by 1932, so 10 years after this tomb was found, it finds its biggest expression on the silver screen with the Universal mummy movie with Boris Karloff. And that is a classic. That is a classic.

[Maddy Pelling]

Before you go, Campbell, I want to ask you, in the context of 1920s imperialism, the curse helps to underpin British imperialist ideas about superstitions in this part of the world, about the Egyptians themselves maybe not being trustworthy, and it sort of bolsters that worldview. Do you think there's a use that a story like this has, and I don't mean to take it at face value, I mean for us to reassess the story, thinking about where the objects from Tutankhamun's tomb and other items from ancient Egypt have, or indeed the ancient world more generally, have ended up in museum collections. Do you think there's something we can take from this story about the curse in terms of thinking about the distribution of these items, who has custodianship over them and what they mean in a modern global context today? Do you think there is a role for the curse within that?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Yes. I don't want to be one of these Egyptologists who rushes in and says, oh, we must dismiss it completely out of turn, because other commentators, they tend not to be specialist Egyptologists, but cultural historians. In writing about Tutankhamun, I'm thinking particularly of Professor Roger Luckhurst, who's written a great book called the Mummy's Curse, which I was reading on the train down to the studio today. He makes the observation that curse narratives very readily incorporate their negations. So actually, if you go on and on about how much you don't believe the curse, that in fact becomes part of the narrative. I had a predecessor at Manchester Museum who was trying to make fun of the curse narrative and said, well, some people think that a cursed mummy sunk the Titanic, when in fact I heard that that same mummy was given to the Kaiser and it started the First World War. By making that suggestion, you've only expanded and amplified the narrative. And in answer to your question, Maddy, I think best placed, the curse narrative challenges the ethics of the tomb robbering in the first place. If you're going to come and steal from me, there's got to be a kind of quid pro quo, like, so you're going to steal from me, something bad is going to happen. And that is very ancient. The ancient Egyptians must have had that concept. Clearly not enough to put those people off stealing the face cream and the jewelry. The Portable jewelry from Tutankhamun. It persists throughout the Middle Ages. And there are whole books written in Arabic about how best to assuage the jinns in tombs in order to go hunting for gold. That's a big industry, and it persists today. Sadly, you know, dozens of people lose their lives in searching for things under their houses and in Egypt, and that undermines the structure of the house and they die. And often it's children because they're small enough to tunnel under the.

[Maddy Pelling]

And in that sense, there is a true cost for disaster.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

There is a very, very serious, true cost. And that, I'm afraid to say, is fueled by this absolute obsession we have still in ancient Egyptian art. We're so covetous of it. Tutankhamun is the kind of COVID boy of this, but it's gone on for centuries. The west and books and documentaries, Indiana.

[Maddy Pelling]

Jones, Lara Croft, all of these things.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Museums do not simply reflect an interest in ancient Egypt. They actively create the interest in ancient Egypt. So we're all complicit in this fantasy which people are literally dying for every year. So that's the real curse of the pharaohs, I think.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, before we let you go, I'm gonna ask a not very clever question, but I want to ask it anyway. We're talking about these curses, we're talking about the potential of these curses and any kind of real world impact you work with, not necessarily the artifacts from Touch and Commons Tomb necessarily on a daily basis, but you work with these artifacts a lot. Yes, I'm sure your team do as well. Over the course of your entire career, has there been anything strange, unusual, interesting that you would ascribe to some kind of otherworldly impact from any of these items that you've worked with?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Gosh, that's a personal question.

[Anthony Delaney]

It is, yeah.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

I didn't believe it was caused by supernatural forces, but there was a case just over 10 years ago when I went into our newly opened gallery of Egypt in Sudan and noticed that one of the pieces had moved on its shelf. And I went in the next day and it was in a different position. The next day it was in a different position again. Now that case is locked and alarmed and I have the only key. So I thought someone was playing a trick on me. And this spawned the story of the spinning statue that we set up a stop motion camera that took a photo a minute for a week and you could see that the piece was spinning, this little statuette was spinning around. And we put that footage on YouTube and it got a Lot of attention. It even featured in an episode of the Simpsons.

[Maddy Pelling]

I mean, that's, that's cultural impact.

[Narrator]

Wow.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

If only we'd monetized that YouTube clip in some way and people were writing to me. People were coming in with lottery tickets believing the statue was going to give them the knowledge about the lottery. People from all around the world came to visit and it increased footfall, but it just confirmed to me not an existence of the supernatural because it was simply because the piece was on a glass shelf and it hadn't been adhered with conservation grade adhesive. It just confirmed to me that people will associate ancient Egyptian things in particular with the unexplained, the supernatural, the threatening.

[Maddy Pelling]

And the power of it.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

The power of it. Had that peace been from Mesoamerica or from another part of the world, from Europe, it would not have generated that. Thus, so, as I say, the curse really is the inescapable association of pharaonic culture and the malign. And I've never found any evidence. I've never felt personally threatened by ancient Egyptian forces myself.

[Maddy Pelling]

Campbell, if our listeners want to find you online, if they want to read your work, tell us where can they do that?

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Well, I'm online on social media gyptmcr. Do give me a follow and you can ask me some questions. I've got a wonderful co authored book for kids with the wonderful Greg Jenner. Ancient Egypt Gets Unruly Brilliant. A part of a new series called Totally Chaotic History. And I've got a book coming out in September, Brief History, Ancient Egypt, 10 Things yous Always Wanted to Know. So These are the 10 questions that I get asked by people in pubs.

[Anthony Delaney]

People on podcasts, people on podcasts, people in barbers. You are in the business of probably one of the most talked about parts of any, right? Like, I mean it's the thing that people remember a lot about or think they remember a lot about. It's a real buzz, chatty topic and.

[Dr. Campbell Price]

Even, you know, if it's not a prescribed topic in the national curriculum, it gets taught because teachers are always saying it's so vivid, it's so colorful, it's so interesting, it's so engaging a subject to talk about. So I hope that continues in school.

[Maddy Pelling]

Absolutely. Hear, hear. Thank you very much.

[Anthony Delaney]

So if you have enjoyed this episode of After Dark and why wouldn't you have had then you, you can find all our past catalog episodes wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this, leave us a five star review no less. Don't bother wasting your time and we shall see you again with our next episode, which will be coming your way soon.

[Narrator]

Get ready for your next True Crime binge.

It's all a blur. My Aunt Elsa called me and she just said, get to the hospital. The doctor came in and told us that there's really not much more that they could do for her and that we need to go say goodbye.

This doesn't happen to people like me. A new True Crime 10 part series from the makers of Sword and Scale launches March 3rd. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.