Death Shall Come: The Moldy Curse of King Tut

King Tutankhamen was around the age 19 when he died and compared to the tombs of other pharaohs, his was modest at best. After his death, the enemies that he had in the state attempted to remove his name from all official documents, including where is name appeared etched in stone upon buildings and monuments.

A curse was placed on the entrance of his tomb and it supposedly read, “death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the king” and a few months after the opening of King Tut’s tomb, Lord Carnarvon, age 57, became seriously ill and was taken to Cairo to be treated. His son claimed later that on his estate back in England, the man’s dog howled and fell dead at almost the same time.

Some studies show that the cause of all the deaths connected with the opening of King Tut’s tomb are due to the dangerous kinds of mold that were growing in the tomb at the time. In the year 1999 a German microbiologist named Gotthard Kramer took samples from 40 mummies and noted that several different dangerous mold types existed on each one.

When mold spores enter the body through the respiratory system, mouth, or through wounds on the skin, they can cause many different medical conditions or even death in some cases, especially in those who have weakened immune systems. Archaeologists now wear gloves and respiratory masks when exploring these places that have remained untouched for so long, which is something the archaeologists of the early 1900’s did not do.

The health records of people who worked at the museum with the mummies had been exposed to a mold called Aspergillus niger, which causes fatigue, rashes, and fever and it has been suggested that this mold may have been able to live inside the tombs for many thousands of years and when the archaeologists entered the tomb to examine it, the mold was picked up and transmitted. Another mold that could have been at Egyptian archaeological sites is Aspergillus ochraceus, but this mold has not been known to be fatal.

So, was it the curse of King Tut that caused so many people to die after the opening of his tomb? Or was mold? Evidence suggests that mold might have been the cause, but it’s possible that we will never truly know the answer.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration companies and
mold remediation companies across the united states.