By Roger Luckhurst
Within the wintry weather of 1922-23 archaeologist Howard Carter and his filthy rich purchaser George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, sensationally opened the tomb of Tutenkhamen. Six weeks later Herbert, the sponsor of the day trip, died in Egypt. the preferred press went wild with rumours of a curse on those that disturbed the Pharaoh's leisure and for years each twist and switch of the destiny of the boys who have been keen on the ancient discovery. lengthy brushed aside by means of Egyptologists, the mummy's curse continues to be part of renowned supernatural trust. Roger Luckhurst explores why the parable has captured the British mind's eye around the centuries, and the way it has impacted on pop culture.
Tutankhamen used to be now not the 1st curse tale to emerge in British pop culture. This booklet uncovers the 'true' tales of 2 amazing Victorian gents generally believed on the time to were cursed by means of the artefacts they introduced domestic from Egypt within the 19th century. those are bizarre tales that weave jointly a solid of recognized writers, painters, feted squaddies, lowly smugglers, revered males of technology, disreputable society dames, and spooky spiritualists. concentrating on stories of the curse fable, Roger Luckhurst leads us via Victorian museums, foreign exhibitions, inner most collections, the battlefields of Egypt and Sudan, and the writings of figures like Arthur Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard and Algernon Blackwood. Written in an open and available kind, this quantity is the manufactured from over ten years examine in London's such a lot curious documents. It explores how we grew to become desirous about Egypt and the way this fascination was once fuelled by way of fable, secret, and hearsay. furthermore, it presents a brand new and startling direction in the course of the cultural background of Victorian England and its colonial possessions.
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Extra resources for The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy
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Yet there were always uncanny thrills to be had in the Egyptian Rooms. In 1927, the Illustrated London News carried a serious article on the jewels and amulets found with Tutankhamun and their relation to Egyptian theology. The same issue included an item headlined ‘The “Ghost” Anyone May See at the British Museum’: In the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery at the British Museum there stands erected vertically against the wall the black basalt coffin of Sebek-Sa, which is empty. If, however, the visitor chances to look through a glass case which contains a statue of Isis holding a figure of her son, Osiris-un-Nefer, a view may be obtained at a certain angle through the glass of Sebek-Sa’s coffin, now no longer empty, but, apparently, with an ‘occupant’ who fits exactly the space within the coffin.
74 In other words, the idea of a catch-all curse as an instantly murderous promise written on a tomb wall or sarcophagus is a fantasy, a later cultural imposition. Superstitions attached to tombs and cemeteries are common in North African Arab culture, but in the Anglo-American world these ideas appear incredibly late, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Usually, the Egyptologist will go no further than issuing a blanket dismissal of such superstitions. 75 At least until recently, Egyptology had little interest in reflecting on what kind of cultural work such rumours might do.
Evelyn Walsh, daughter of a fabulously wealthy prospector-turned-businessman, had just married the heir to the Washington Post media empire, and their combined wealth had already bought the famous ‘Star of the East’ diamond. Cartier failed to persuade them in Paris, but travelled to America with the Hope Diamond in 1911 and closed the deal. Richard Kurin suggests Pierre Cartier built on the breathless Times account to fashion an alluringly dangerous history, much of it fantastic. ’98 The Maclean family seemed to be impressively doomed.