Dr Zahi Hawass discusses the mummy curse
When KV 62, the tomb of Tutankamun, was found, an English reporter translated a piece of text from the front of the Anubis shrine incorrectly. She claimed it said “I will kill anyone who enters this tomb.” But if this text represented an actual, effective curse, everyone who entered the tomb should have died soon, including Howard Carter and all the workmen who cleared the tomb. Howard Carter lived for almost 20 years after he opened the tomb, so clearly it was not a curse. Rather, texts of this nature were warning inscriptions that the ancient Egyptians intended to frighten people away from disturbing and robbing their tombs.
A possible explanation for disease associated with tomb openings is that the materials stored in tomb- mummies, wood, stone and organic materials, decay and collect germs over the centuries. When Egyptology was a new discipline, and people began to enter these tombs as adventurers and explorers, they opened these tombs for the first time in thousands of years, and they encountered these germs, which sometimes proved fatal. I have been excavating for 35 years, and have discovered many tombs full of mummies. In order to clear the air, I open the tomb and leave it open for one day, for all the bad air to circulate out of the tomb.
Dr Hawass then suggests not to shave if you’re about to open an ancient Egyptian tomb for the first time, as the pores remain open and this is a better opportunity for bacteria to invade the body.
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