Tut's Toxic Tomb (2022)
On November 26, 1922, Howard Carter made one of the greatest discoveries ever; the tomb of the Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun. The news was spread all over the world. But when people who had entered the chamber began to die, stories of the "curse of the pharaoh" spread. Were the deaths a coincidence or stories to sell newspapers? Can modern science explain the truth behind the legend?
❤️Ella Al-Shamahi❤️❤️❤️❤️
#tutankhamun #documentary
On November 26, 1922, Howard Carter made one of the greatest discoveries ever; the tomb of the Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun. The news was spread all over the world. But when people who had entered the chamber began to die, stories of the "curse of the pharaoh" spread. Were the deaths a coincidence or stories to sell newspapers? Can modern science explain the truth behind the legend?
❤️Ella Al-Shamahi❤️❤️❤️❤️
#tutankhamun #documentary
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TVTranscript
00:00:00It is one of the most celebrated archaeological discoveries in history,
00:00:05and even after a century, King Tut's tomb still captivates our imaginations.
00:00:10But the tomb's legacy is more than just the priceless treasures found inside.
00:00:15It also includes a dark legend that has served as a warning across generations,
00:00:20the so-called Curse of King Tut.
00:00:23The belief that anyone entering his tomb would meet with an untimely death
00:00:27remains as well-known today as Tut himself.
00:00:30And the gruesome, violent, and bizarre deaths that followed the opening of the tomb
00:00:35are as baffling now as they were in the 1920s.
00:00:39But dogged researchers and modern technology are closer than ever to giving us answers.
00:00:45A hundred years after his discovery, can we finally put King Tut's curse to rest?
00:00:51A century ago, in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, an archaeologist opened a royal tomb
00:01:01and found one of the greatest collections of treasure in history.
00:01:07Nothing like the tomb of Tutankhamun had ever been found before.
00:01:13But within months, men who had entered the burial chamber began to die.
00:01:19The press started spinning tales of King Tut's curse, and a legend was unleashed.
00:01:27The world was captivated by the supernatural stories of obsession, jealousy, and death.
00:01:34Reputable scholars said this was just nonsense, but the people ate it up.
00:01:42But if the curse was nonsense, could these deaths have another connection?
00:01:47The DNA material inside could live for thousands of years.
00:01:51Was there something deadly about the tomb itself?
00:01:55On the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of King Tut, we're about to find out.
00:02:03Every autumn, archaeologists from all over the world descend on ancient sites in Egypt to excavate the past.
00:02:13Paleoanthropologist Ella Alshamahi is on the ground on a mission to get to the bottom of King Tut's curse.
00:02:21It's just an absolute frenzy behind me.
00:02:24I was just screaming. It's like a production line of men and dust and sand.
00:02:30Everyone here is desperately hoping to hit the next big discovery
00:02:36because when they find the next big discovery, it puts them on the map.
00:02:40It makes them want to go back.
00:02:42Everyone here is desperately hoping to hit the next big discovery
00:02:47because when they find the next big discovery, it puts them on the map.
00:02:51It makes headline news all over the world.
00:02:53But most of the time, of course, that's not what happens.
00:02:56But if it happens, it's huge.
00:03:03Despite the persistent legend of King Tut's curse,
00:03:06there's little doubt that everyone digging in the desert today
00:03:09has been inspired by the most extraordinary archaeological site of all time.
00:03:16In 1922, a team led by the British archaeologist Howard Carter
00:03:21discovered the tomb of the teenaged pharaoh Tutankhamun.
00:03:26The first virtually intact pharaoh's tomb ever found,
00:03:30it was filled with thousands of treasures,
00:03:33from royal chariots to the nested coffins of Tutankhamun himself,
00:03:39complete with a dazzling golden death mask.
00:03:45Huge crowds flocked to the tomb,
00:03:48while newspapers around the world announced the find of the century.
00:03:55Carter's discoveries were shipped down the Nile
00:03:58to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo.
00:04:02Millions have flocked here to see Tut's treasures.
00:04:08Ella paid a visit to this magnificent display,
00:04:11which will soon be moving to the brand-new Grand Egyptian Museum
00:04:15near the Giza Pyramids.
00:04:17Why do you think people are so obsessed with Tutankhamun?
00:04:20It was huge. I mean, no one had ever seen anything like it before.
00:04:23You'd get these tantalizing glimpses of royal tombs
00:04:27that had some jewelry here, some jewelry there, a coffin or something.
00:04:30But this was everything together,
00:04:32and it was just luxury like people hadn't seen.
00:04:35It was gold, it was glitter, it was everything.
00:04:37And you can see, like, everybody with their cameras.
00:04:40It completely captured the imagination.
00:04:42We're surrounded by tons of people that are here just to see this stuff.
00:04:47At the heart of the exhibit is the greatest treasure of the tomb.
00:04:56This is the death mask of Tutankhamun.
00:05:00It would have rested on top of his mummy.
00:05:02There's a lot of bling here. Talk me through some of this.
00:05:05Yes, this is so much bling. This is two sheets of gold.
00:05:08They were hammered and put together.
00:05:11And then all of the precious things that Egypt had over their control
00:05:15are reflected in this beautiful piece.
00:05:18So we've got gold, which is Egypt and Nubia,
00:05:21and then the bands of his headdress.
00:05:24That's actually glass paste.
00:05:26Wow, okay.
00:05:27Which you wouldn't think. I mean, we see glass everywhere.
00:05:29There's glass in front of me right now.
00:05:31But glass at the time of Tutankhamun had just been invented.
00:05:34It was the chicest thing you could have.
00:05:36So in Tutankhamun's time, you would see this and think,
00:05:39wow, this is opulence.
00:05:42Any other precious stones that are worth mentioning?
00:05:44Yes, so we've got obsidian for his pupils and quartz for the eyes.
00:05:49There's turquoise, carnelian, lapis lazuli.
00:05:53It's beyond belief. You have to see it with your own eyes.
00:05:58The death mask was designed to guide the spirit of Tutankhamun
00:06:02back to its resting place within his body.
00:06:06So many people are used to seeing the front of the mask.
00:06:08Actually, there's a whole pile of stuff going on at the back of the mask.
00:06:11Could you talk me through some of this?
00:06:13So at the back, there's inscriptions from the Book of the Dead.
00:06:16Right. Yes. Okay.
00:06:18So not only do you have the actual mask guarding his mummy and protecting it,
00:06:22but you have these protective spells that would enact rituals
00:06:25so that his mummy would be preserved and make it to the afterlife.
00:06:29And I mean, this is something to always remember with ancient Egyptian art.
00:06:32It's beautiful. It's luxurious.
00:06:34But at the same time, it is ritually functional.
00:06:40It is believed that Tut died at just 19 years old.
00:06:45To preserve his body for the afterlife,
00:06:47priests dried him in salts and stored his organs
00:06:50in hand-carved containers called canopic jars.
00:06:55During mummification, the embalmers would have removed his lungs,
00:06:59his liver, his stomach, and his intestines,
00:07:02and each one of those organs would be put in these individual containers
00:07:05so that he could live again.
00:07:08The top craftsmen in the ancient world were making these pieces.
00:07:12Look at this face of Tutankhamun.
00:07:14It's carved in alabaster so delicately.
00:07:18To protect the treasures from tomb raiders, guards were added as well.
00:07:23This is the god Anubis.
00:07:25And he's reclining with his paws out,
00:07:28and he's got this watchful yet ferocious look in his eye.
00:07:33He's completely alert, guarding Tut's tomb.
00:07:38This is a really good job for 3,000 plus years.
00:07:41Well done.
00:07:42Good job.
00:07:45But these remarkable treasures aren't the only reason
00:07:48the world became obsessed with Tutankhamun.
00:07:53Within months after his tomb's discovery,
00:07:57celebration turned to tragedy
00:07:59as word began to spread about a series of mysterious deaths.
00:08:05The victims were all linked to the tomb
00:08:08and died in a variety of ways—
00:08:10pneumonia, gunshot, and suicide.
00:08:17For newspapers at the time,
00:08:19this salacious story was too good to ignore,
00:08:22and the legend of King Tut's curse was born.
00:08:27Now this is an article in the Daily Mirror.
00:08:29And in this article, the death toll just skyrockets.
00:08:33In fact, they just get to the point where they just start
00:08:35listing the names of the victims of the curse.
00:08:38So we have Sir Archibald Douglas Reid,
00:08:41Professor Le Fleur, Mr. H.G. Evelyn White,
00:08:44M. Benedict, Colonel Aubrey Herbert,
00:08:47Mr. J. Gould, Mrs. Evelyn Waddington-Green,
00:08:50Dr. Jonathan W. Carver.
00:08:54The curse was taken very seriously
00:08:56by readers around the world.
00:08:59What was it about this story that captured imaginations?
00:09:04Was it just part of a fascination with a distant and exotic East?
00:09:09Or could these deaths truly be linked to Tut?
00:09:13Of course, there would be no curse
00:09:15if it were not for the man who opened the tomb, Howard Carter.
00:09:19Could his backstory provide any insight?
00:09:23Tomorrow I'm heading down to the Valley of the Kings.
00:09:26I'm fascinated with how this one tomb
00:09:29has absolutely captured the imagination
00:09:34of the world for so long.
00:09:38Could something as far-fetched as a curse
00:09:41actually be grounded in science?
00:09:43And can modern technology shed new light
00:09:46on the deaths blamed on Tutankhamun?
00:09:53Today we all know the name Howard Carter,
00:09:56but his success as an Egyptologist was never a foregone conclusion.
00:10:00In the late 1800s, the typical qualifications for the title
00:10:03included an aristocratic background and highbrow schooling.
00:10:07Carter, on the other hand, only received limited education.
00:10:10The son of a successful painter and a natural artist himself,
00:10:14Carter's interest in the land of the pharaohs
00:10:17was sparked when his father was commissioned
00:10:19to paint a portrait of well-known Egyptologist Percy Newbery.
00:10:23And so, at age 17, Carter found work drawing tombs,
00:10:27and so began an illustrious career.
00:10:33Paleoanthropologist Ella Alshamahi
00:10:36is investigating the dark side
00:10:38of one of history's greatest collections of treasure,
00:10:41the legend of King Tut's curse.
00:10:45She's going back to the start,
00:10:47to the man whose obsession led him to the tomb,
00:10:50Howard Carter.
00:10:53Egyptologist Chris Naunton has spent years studying Carter
00:10:57and the fascination that drew him to Egypt.
00:11:02Carter first came to Egypt in 1891 as a young artist,
00:11:06making detailed copies of Egyptian paintings.
00:11:09These are parts of a collection of watercolour paintings
00:11:15that Carter made.
00:11:17He's a teenager at this point, and they are incredibly detailed.
00:11:21In themselves, often, sort of little mini works of art,
00:11:24little mini masterpieces.
00:11:26He was good. He was really, really good.
00:11:30In Egypt, Carter became fascinated by the culture
00:11:34and grew determined to become an archaeologist.
00:11:38But this world was dominated
00:11:40by the highly educated and the rich.
00:11:44Egyptology was largely restricted to elites,
00:11:48and Carter was not really part of that elite himself.
00:11:53He didn't have a scholarly training.
00:11:55He wasn't from a wealthy background.
00:11:58Carter was something of an outsider in Egyptology.
00:12:02But the young man had something
00:12:04many of his wealthier peers lacked, obsession.
00:12:11With hard work and his passion for Egypt,
00:12:14Carter climbed the ranks of archaeology
00:12:17throughout the early 1900s,
00:12:19determined to discover a treasure of his own.
00:12:22This is a time when lots of really spectacular discoveries
00:12:26were being made.
00:12:30And it's clear that Carter wanted something like this for himself.
00:12:36Carter's search gradually began to focus on the Valley of the Kings.
00:12:41400 miles south of Cairo,
00:12:43this ancient site was used as a burial ground
00:12:47for the pharaohs for nearly 500 years.
00:12:50Many archaeologists at the time thought
00:12:53that the valley had already given up all its treasures.
00:12:57But Carter was obsessed with finding a spectacular prize,
00:13:01the tomb of the teenaged pharaoh Tutankhamun.
00:13:05In 1917, 43-year-old Howard Carter's search began in earnest.
00:13:11But five long years later, he was still on the hunt.
00:13:15The people around him, I think,
00:13:17were losing faith in what he was doing.
00:13:20And he says himself in his published account,
00:13:23we had now dug in the valley for several seasons
00:13:27with extremely scanty results.
00:13:29And those around him were saying,
00:13:31do you know what, I think it's time to stop.
00:13:33But he's the one who's determined, obsessed maybe.
00:13:37Even though many were losing faith in Carter,
00:13:40there was one man whose support was unwavering.
00:13:43George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon,
00:13:46was an aristocrat with a passion for all types of adventure.
00:13:51He loved horse racing, fast cars, and most of all, ancient Egypt.
00:13:58Unlike Carter, Carnarvon's family was among the wealthy elite,
00:14:02so he had the money needed to fund the expensive work of digging in the desert.
00:14:07The two men forged a close partnership,
00:14:10and it was Carnarvon who financed Carter's search in the Valley of the Kings.
00:14:17But by early 1922, Carter had found nothing,
00:14:22and soon, even Lord Carnarvon's patience was wearing thin.
00:14:28Carter, though, was able to convince his financial backer
00:14:32to give him one last chance.
00:14:39In the fall of 1922, Howard Carter set out once again
00:14:43to find the tomb of Tutankhamun.
00:14:46He knew this could be his last chance on Carnarvon's dime.
00:14:53When Carter returned to the holy Valley of the Kings in 1922,
00:14:57roughly 60 tombs had already been discovered, though none by him.
00:15:02Again, he began to dig, and again, he found nothing.
00:15:08But then, as Carter later described,
00:15:10a waterboy noticed a stone step in the sand.
00:15:14It led down to an ancient staircase cut deep into the bedrock,
00:15:18and the greatest discovery in the history of Egyptology.
00:15:24But then, shockingly, the men involved mysteriously began to die.
00:15:30The press was quick to blame a curse.
00:15:33But what's the real explanation for the deaths connected to the tomb of Tutankhamun?
00:15:39The fact that Tut's tomb remained intact until the modern age is a near miracle.
00:15:44But the real surprise is not that it survived for thousands of years,
00:15:48but that it survived for even a day.
00:15:50Most of the treasures belonging to the pharaohs weren't found by archaeologists.
00:15:55Instead, they were often plundered by the very people who built and decorated the tombs.
00:16:00Looting began as soon as the doors were sealed.
00:16:03These builders knew where to break in without being seen.
00:16:07These builders knew where to break in without causing collapse or triggering booby traps,
00:16:12because they were the ones who created them.
00:16:14Fortunately for us, Tut's tomb and all its glorious treasures waited patiently for Howard Carter.
00:16:25In November 1922, Howard Carter's relentless search for a pharaoh's tomb was finally over.
00:16:33His team had uncovered an ancient staircase cut deep into the rock of the Valley of the Kings.
00:16:40Egyptologist Salima Ikram has spent decades studying what happened next.
00:16:46This is the great tomb of Tutankhamun.
00:16:48This doesn't really look like much.
00:16:50It doesn't look like this opening to one of the greatest discoveries ever made,
00:16:55a tomb that was so important to change the course of history.
00:16:59After excavating tons of rubble, Howard Carter reached a sealed doorway.
00:17:06The hole would have been here somewhere.
00:17:08This would have all been filled in, and then he took out a few stones,
00:17:12and then they put in the light to make sure that there weren't horrible gases that would kill them all.
00:17:18And then in the flicker of that light, he looked in, and all he could see was the glint of gold and wonderful things.
00:17:28Though he'd been dreaming of this moment for decades,
00:17:31it's unlikely that even Carter could have imagined the sheer number of treasures contained within the tomb.
00:17:39When Carter came in, this place was chock-a-block with objects.
00:17:45There were beds here, and they were piled high with food offerings underneath.
00:17:50There were pieces of chariots, there were boxes with jewelry, so you could barely get in.
00:17:56The reason for the crowded and chaotic appearance of Tut's tomb may have been his shocking, untimely death.
00:18:04Gone at just 19 years old, his own royal tomb was unlikely to have been finished.
00:18:11Instead, it's speculated that priests were forced to use a smaller tomb, meant for a less important figure,
00:18:18so they had to pack it to the rafters.
00:18:22We have special permission to come in here.
00:18:26This is the main event.
00:18:28There would have been a bunch of shrines, and then we have the sarcophagus,
00:18:31and inside there was a nest of coffins,
00:18:34and in the innermost one you would have had the gold mask on top of the body of the king.
00:18:40And how do you think Howard Carter reacted when he saw the death mask?
00:18:44Well, I mean, can you imagine just looking at it with the flickering light and seeing this beautiful thing?
00:18:51And it's very moving, because behind the mask lies the king himself.
00:19:01So this is Tutankhamen.
00:19:03Yes, this is the boy himself.
00:19:07It's incredible how he could see the detail.
00:19:12I feel actually really fond of him, because when I was little, like many of us,
00:19:17he was one of the reasons one fell into Egyptology.
00:19:20And I've had a chance to spend time with his physical self,
00:19:24so one gets a certain intimacy, and one feels also a bit protective, I think.
00:19:35Howard Carter had finally found the tomb of his dreams.
00:19:39He and his team began to meticulously catalogue every one of its thousands of treasures.
00:19:45But while Carter could oversee what was happening inside the tomb,
00:19:49events outside were moving beyond his control.
00:19:54There was a huge amount of excitement.
00:19:58And the press flocked here, and people flocked here.
00:20:03And, you know, anyone who was in Egypt, in fact, ditched all their plans and came to Luxor.
00:20:09The mouth of the tomb was knee-deep with people,
00:20:12and they would just wait to see what was going on.
00:20:15It was a bit like a garden party sometimes,
00:20:17with ladies sipping their tea and others doing their knitting.
00:20:23Egyptomania soon went global.
00:20:27At the time the tomb was opened in 1923,
00:20:30photography, film and advertising were starting to reshape the world,
00:20:34and Tutankhamen became a modern sensation.
00:20:37He was used to sell lemons in California.
00:20:42Jewelry was sold in the King Tut style.
00:20:46And students even dressed up as the young pharaoh's mummy.
00:20:52Newspapers battled for their piece of the biggest story on the planet.
00:20:58You've got all of these people clamouring to get in,
00:21:01and then the press comes.
00:21:03So there was real media circus.
00:21:05They were all around it, they were encircling.
00:21:07It was a bit like having vultures around.
00:21:10How did Howard Carter and Carnarvon feel about this?
00:21:13How did they deal with it?
00:21:14Carter really wanted to get on with the work,
00:21:16and so I think there was also this stress of,
00:21:18will I do this correctly, who knows what's going to be in there?
00:21:21And in the end, what he decided to do,
00:21:24which perhaps was not the best decision,
00:21:26was that they would give exclusive rights,
00:21:28and not to the rest of the media.
00:21:30Of course, all the rest of the media was really angry about this.
00:21:35The exclusivity granted to the Times of London
00:21:38rankled one journalist in particular,
00:21:41Arthur Weigel.
00:21:43Weigel had once been an archaeologist
00:21:45and had even worked alongside Howard Carter.
00:21:49But by the time Carter won global fame with Times of London,
00:21:52he was no longer a journalist.
00:21:55But by the time Carter won global fame with Tut,
00:21:58Weigel was earning his living as a correspondent for the Daily Mail.
00:22:03He was never as good an archaeologist as Carter,
00:22:05and so there is Howard Carter finding this thing.
00:22:09Arthur Weigel's going gnashing his teeth.
00:22:12Weigel's a journalist.
00:22:13He wants to sell papers, so let's spin a tale.
00:22:16Oh, Carnarvon, if he goes in there, I'll give him six weeks to live.
00:22:22What may have started as a cynical attempt to create a newspaper story
00:22:26would soon haunt those involved in the discovery
00:22:29and help transform Tutankhamun's tomb
00:22:32from famous to infamous.
00:22:37The tomb of Tutankhamun
00:22:39is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.
00:22:42But back in England,
00:22:43the home of the man who funded its discovery
00:22:46has itself become a modern-day tourist attraction.
00:22:49It's all thanks to a little television show
00:22:51with a fan base every bit as dedicated as King Tut's.
00:22:58Less than a two-hour drive west of London
00:23:00is the stately mansion of Lord Carnarvon.
00:23:04Established in 1679,
00:23:06it's known worldwide as Highclere Castle
00:23:09and is home to the fictional aristocrats of Downton Abbey.
00:23:13It is also home to Lord Carnarvon's tomb.
00:23:17In February 1923,
00:23:19Carnarvon attended the opening of the burial chamber of Tutankhamun.
00:23:25Spurned journalist Arthur Weigel also attended.
00:23:29After overhearing Carnarvon joking as he entered,
00:23:32Weigel retorted that if Carnarvon was going to be glib
00:23:35about entering a burial site,
00:23:37he'd give him six weeks to live.
00:23:41And just over six weeks later,
00:23:43Carnarvon was dead.
00:23:46He died in the morning of April 5th, 1923
00:23:49in the Grand Continental Hotel in Cairo.
00:23:53The cause of death was listed as pneumonia and blood poisoning
00:23:56from an infected mosquito bite.
00:23:59Despite this official ruling,
00:24:01within days the press reported that Lord Carnarvon's death
00:24:04was the result of something much more sinister,
00:24:07even supernatural.
00:24:11Newspapers were quick to report rumors
00:24:13that the death was caused by a curse.
00:24:16A punishment for disturbing the resting place of the pharaoh.
00:24:22And the press didn't have to wait long
00:24:24to report on another supposed victim.
00:24:27George J. Gould, heir to a railroad fortune,
00:24:30was from one of the wealthiest families in America.
00:24:34Like many of the super-rich, Gould enjoyed the high life,
00:24:37yachting, polo, and traveling around the world.
00:24:42In 1923, he was visiting Egypt.
00:24:46Like dozens of wealthy tourists,
00:24:48he went to the most sensational site in the country.
00:24:53Here, along with other VIPs,
00:24:55he was allowed to enter and explore the tomb of Tutankhamun.
00:25:02Not long after this excursion, he contracted a fever,
00:25:05and within a month, Gould was dead.
00:25:12This was just six weeks after the death of Lord Carnarvon.
00:25:18Along with visiting Tut's tomb,
00:25:20both men had the same lung infection, pneumonia,
00:25:23listed among their ailments at the time of their deaths.
00:25:28Then, just a year later,
00:25:30another man who had attended the tomb opening was dead.
00:25:34Egyptologist Hugh Evelyn White died by suicide.
00:25:39According to newspapers, he left a note saying,
00:25:42I have succumbed to a curse.
00:25:48In less than two years,
00:25:50three of the men who had entered the tomb were dead.
00:25:54Hyped by the newspapers,
00:25:56the legend of Tut's curse was gaining strength.
00:26:00But was the curse pure myth?
00:26:03The Egyptian pharaohs themselves didn't think so.
00:26:06They would frequently inscribe hypothetical punishments
00:26:09for robbers at the entrances of their tombs.
00:26:13This is one of my favorite curses.
00:26:15If you come into my tomb and do anything terrible like rob it,
00:26:19I shall have your neck broken like that of a bird.
00:26:23It's quite a violent curse.
00:26:25Well, I mean, if you're protecting your tomb,
00:26:27there has to be some degree of threat going on,
00:26:29otherwise no one's going to pay any attention.
00:26:33Salima Ikram's evidence shows that 4,000 years ago,
00:26:37curses were used to frighten grave robbers.
00:26:41If you come into my tomb and you are impure and unclean,
00:26:45may the council of gods smite you and they will wring your neck.
00:26:50And just around the corner,
00:26:52you can see this mongoose attacking an evildoer,
00:26:55eating it and biting its neck off.
00:26:58What is your take on curses?
00:27:00People do talk about the curses
00:27:02and there are sometimes theories of bad luck.
00:27:04But we also wonder, are you producing your own curse
00:27:07by buying into this idea and, you know,
00:27:10making the bad energy present?
00:27:17The warnings found in these hieroglyphics
00:27:19seemed to validate belief in Tut's curse.
00:27:22And combined with the deaths of Carnarvon and Gould,
00:27:25the legend grew.
00:27:27Eager to sell newspapers,
00:27:29reporters continued to add more names to the list of victims.
00:27:34Like Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey,
00:27:36an Egyptian shot to death in London by his wife.
00:27:39Bey had made a visit to the tomb months before,
00:27:42but his death was blamed on the curse.
00:27:46Gunshots aside, what if there was another reason
00:27:49people linked to the tomb were dying?
00:27:52One that medical science can finally understand.
00:27:57♪♪♪
00:28:02Howard Carter fell in love with ancient Egypt
00:28:05on his very first visit there at age 17.
00:28:08And there's no place that gave him more joy
00:28:10than the Valley of the Kings,
00:28:12the royal necropolis where he worked for over 30 years.
00:28:15Unlike other archaeologists who stayed in modern comfort
00:28:18across the Nile on the east bank of Luxor,
00:28:21Carter took up residence among the tombs
00:28:24in a house on the west bank.
00:28:26The house was abandoned after he returned to England
00:28:28in the 1930s, but it's recently been turned
00:28:31into a museum honoring his work.
00:28:33King Tut, though, is still the big draw.
00:28:35An exact replica of his tomb has been created
00:28:38next door to the house to help cut down on traffic
00:28:41at the fragile original site.
00:28:43♪♪♪
00:28:46Paleoanthropologist Ella Alshamahi
00:28:49has come to Luxor near the Valley of the Kings
00:28:52to visit the house of Howard Carter.
00:28:55She's meeting Bob Bianchi,
00:28:57an Egyptologist and an expert on Carter's discovery.
00:29:01What do you think it was specifically
00:29:03about the discovery of Tutankhamen
00:29:05that captured the imagination like that,
00:29:07that made it so popular?
00:29:09On the one hand, Europe and America
00:29:11had just emerged from the horrific First World War.
00:29:15And there were many, many individuals
00:29:18who lost a lot of sons, boyfriends, husbands.
00:29:23And the discovery of a dead pharaoh,
00:29:25I think, evoked those kinds of memories.
00:29:30And it wasn't just World War I.
00:29:32It was also the Spanish flu.
00:29:34Yes.
00:29:35You know, the big pandemic of the century.
00:29:37I think that death was on everybody's mind.
00:29:40And here you have a dead individual
00:29:44that's immortalized,
00:29:45and he's buried with all of these riches.
00:29:48And I think that just resonates
00:29:50with people's sensibilities of mourning,
00:29:52grievance, and remembrance.
00:29:57War and disease weren't the only reasons
00:30:00that Tut deaths were such a hot topic.
00:30:03Mysticism and the occult were growing in popularity,
00:30:07and a movement called spiritualism
00:30:09promoted seances as a way to communicate with the dead.
00:30:14One of the most famous spiritualists of the day
00:30:17was Arthur Conan Doyle,
00:30:19the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
00:30:22Arthur Conan Doyle attributed the death of Lord Carnarvon
00:30:26to what he termed the elementals,
00:30:29meaning it was a supernatural force
00:30:32that was controlled by the priests
00:30:35who were charged with protecting the dead pharaoh.
00:30:39And when the tomb was violated,
00:30:42these priests unleashed those elementals
00:30:46and wreaked their havoc on the person
00:30:49that intruded on the burial.
00:30:53With Conan Doyle's celebrity endorsement of the curse,
00:30:56the legend continued to marshal more believers
00:30:59and more victims.
00:31:01The list soon included a British army officer
00:31:04who was assassinated in Cairo
00:31:07and Lord Carnarvon's half-brother
00:31:09who died of blood poisoning in 1923
00:31:12and had never even been inside the tomb.
00:31:17The press was casting a wider and wider net
00:31:21to add victims to the list.
00:31:23But there was a direct link to Tut's tomb
00:31:26with two early deaths and a common affliction.
00:31:29Lord Carnarvon and George J. Gould
00:31:32both entered the tomb and died within six weeks of each other
00:31:36after suffering from pneumonia.
00:31:38Could something in the tomb
00:31:40have caused both to develop this lung infection?
00:31:44In London, Ella visits Dr. Houtan Ashrafian,
00:31:48an expert on pneumonia and disease in ancient Egypt.
00:31:52Lord Carnarvon had been exposing himself
00:31:55to many contagious agents in the environment
00:31:58because he'd go to dirty cities,
00:32:00he'd go to dirty tombs,
00:32:02and he was likely suffering
00:32:04from chronic obstructive lung disease.
00:32:07And so what is this?
00:32:09So here we have a lobe of the lung,
00:32:11and this would have been very similar to the pathology
00:32:14that one would have found in Lord Carnarvon in his final days.
00:32:18The lung has suffered heavily from infection and pneumonia,
00:32:22and the whole lung looks congested.
00:32:24It's not allowing people to breathe properly,
00:32:27it's not allowing the lung to clear itself.
00:32:29So people would be coughing, they'd be short of breath,
00:32:32and this would have led to bacteria going to the bloodstream
00:32:36which would have caused fevers.
00:32:39Photographs prove that Lord Carnarvon
00:32:41made multiple visits to the tomb and spent time inside.
00:32:47The tomb can be full of many contagious agents.
00:32:50That could include viruses, that could include bacteria,
00:32:53and that could be from moulds or fungi.
00:32:57And entering into that tomb space,
00:33:00one can be exposed to all of those potential agents,
00:33:03and as a result, it can cause lung infections
00:33:07that persist and can cause sepsis and death.
00:33:12So it's possible that deadly pathogens from the tomb
00:33:15could have infected Lord Carnarvon and George J. Gould.
00:33:19But if that's the case, why would the tomb of King Tut
00:33:22be the only one containing such dangers?
00:33:26It turns out, it's not.
00:33:28The hunt for other mysterious deaths with tomb connections begins,
00:33:33and in faraway Eastern Europe, there may be a crucial clue.
00:33:42As two key deaths attributed to King Tut's tomb
00:33:45seem to have decidedly eerie similarities,
00:33:48could a scientific explanation finally be in sight?
00:33:52Surprisingly, another king, nearly 3,000 miles away
00:33:56and buried nearly 3,000 years after Tut,
00:33:59may offer crucial clues.
00:34:01King Casimir IV of Poland reigned from 1447
00:34:05until his death in 1492 at age 65.
00:34:09His long reign and list of accomplishments
00:34:11are in stark contrast with those of Tut,
00:34:14and their burials couldn't be more different.
00:34:16Casimir was buried in a plain wooden coffin,
00:34:19his body covered simply by a cloth.
00:34:21It doesn't quite match the opulence of Tut.
00:34:24500 years after Casimir's death, however,
00:34:27some similarities with Tut have come to light,
00:34:30and those similarities may be deadly.
00:34:38In the 1970s, the Polish city of Krakow
00:34:41was rocked by a chilling scandal.
00:34:44A string of archaeologists and scientists began to die.
00:34:49The press revealed that the men had all visited the same location,
00:34:53Wawel Cathedral.
00:35:00In the years before the Second World War,
00:35:02the cathedral had fallen into disrepair.
00:35:06By the 1970s, it was in urgent need of renovation.
00:35:10But that would mean disturbing the tomb
00:35:12of one of Poland's greatest kings,
00:35:14Casimir IV Jagiellon.
00:35:18Polish Cardinal Wojciech,
00:35:20who later became Pope John Paul II,
00:35:22made the decision to open the tomb
00:35:24that had been undisturbed for nearly 500 years.
00:35:31Adam Bujak was a young photographer
00:35:33and part of the team that entered the tomb
00:35:35and opened the king's coffin.
00:35:40They lifted off a slab and we saw a heap of rubble.
00:35:48The head of the king was there,
00:35:51remains of his body, remains of his clothing,
00:35:54and remains of his crown.
00:35:56His body, remains of his clothing,
00:35:58and remains of his crown that was there
00:36:01in all that old rubble.
00:36:04It was a startling experience.
00:36:10Adam's camera captured the moment
00:36:12the future pope gazed inside the tomb.
00:36:17This is the picture of the moment he leaned forward
00:36:20and looked at the royal remains.
00:36:24I imagine that this is a very, very significant Polish tomb
00:36:27that hasn't been opened for 500 years.
00:36:29There must have been some people saying,
00:36:32is this bad for us to be disturbing this tomb?
00:36:36There was talk of this.
00:36:38Some people were saying that.
00:36:40Men of the prelate said,
00:36:42why should the remains be disturbed?
00:36:45Why touch the earthly remains?
00:36:47They should be left alone.
00:36:50Evidently, our cardinal was of a different opinion.
00:36:58But the team found more than just the king's remains
00:37:01in the tomb.
00:37:03The archaeologists said the heir had a thick stench of decay.
00:37:12After the renovations, the king was returned to his tomb
00:37:15in a televised ceremony.
00:37:19But soon after, members of the team involved in the exhumation
00:37:22started to become seriously ill.
00:37:26Stefan Walczuk died from a bleeding disorder.
00:37:30Jan Merlach from an aneurysm.
00:37:33And Feliks Danczak from a cerebral hemorrhage.
00:37:38In all, over 10 members of the original team died prematurely.
00:37:43Rumors began to spread about a curse.
00:37:46A punishment inflicted by the ancient king
00:37:49for disturbing his rest.
00:37:57Fortunately, during the excavations,
00:37:59scientists had taken specimens for testing.
00:38:03The samples from the tomb were brought
00:38:05to the University of Agriculture in Krakow for analysis.
00:38:11Back then, Professor Wiesław Barabasz
00:38:14was a young lab assistant.
00:38:17He helped analyze the samples from the tomb.
00:38:22After collecting the samples,
00:38:25they were placed in these sterile petri dishes.
00:38:30These were fragments of the coffin,
00:38:32the robe, the bones,
00:38:34and some sort of dust residue that remained.
00:38:38And we waited for 3, 4, 5 days, 6 days.
00:38:44Nothing grew.
00:38:47So the professor said,
00:38:49we need to apply some other technique.
00:38:56So the scientists heated the samples.
00:39:00In one specimen containing material
00:39:02from the dead king's internal organs,
00:39:04in one specimen containing material
00:39:06from the dead king's knee bone,
00:39:08the heat awoke a fungus
00:39:10that had been dormant for centuries.
00:39:13Among those fungi,
00:39:15we discovered a very interesting,
00:39:17very specific fungus, Aspergillus flavus.
00:39:24Aspergillus flavus is a pathogenic fungus
00:39:27and a potentially deadly toxin
00:39:29that can attack weakened lungs.
00:39:32It can also cause organ failure and strokes.
00:39:40The scientists were still working in the lab
00:39:42when a reporter started asking questions.
00:39:46That journalist came here to the Jagiellonian Library
00:39:49to start his investigation.
00:39:53When was the first moment you heard about this story?
00:39:57One day, my friend Michał Rożek came to see me
00:40:02and suddenly told me an amazing thing
00:40:07that related to the Wawel Castle.
00:40:11Three researchers from the open tomb
00:40:13of Kazimierz IV Jagiellon have died.
00:40:17So I immediately called the microbiologist
00:40:20Professor Bolesław Smyk.
00:40:27Professor Smyk told Szwajek that
00:40:29in the remains of the knee bone
00:40:31he'd discovered the deadly fungus Aspergillus flavus.
00:40:38The journalist realized that this, not a curse,
00:40:41was the cause of the deaths,
00:40:43and he told the world.
00:40:47And only after that,
00:40:49the whole world got to know
00:40:51what an amazing thing it was.
00:40:54The whole world got to know what a nightmare,
00:40:57what a terrible thing Aspergillus flavus could be.
00:41:04Szwajek then began to wonder
00:41:06if the same toxin could explain another so-called cursed tomb,
00:41:11one with a legend that had captivated the world
00:41:13nearly 50 years earlier.
00:41:17So he traveled to the Valley of the Kings
00:41:19to investigate the tomb of Tutankhamun.
00:41:25While studying the materials taken from Tutankhamun's tomb,
00:41:30I noticed the number of deaths in Egypt
00:41:34was similar to the number of deaths
00:41:37of the researchers in Kraków.
00:41:40It was also the first time
00:41:42that both tombs were opened since the funerals.
00:41:51And that wasn't the only link
00:41:53between this fungus and Tut.
00:41:56Aspergillus mold grows well on grain.
00:42:03Tutankhamun's tomb contained ample supplies
00:42:06of bread and raw grain as food for the afterlife.
00:42:11Also, shortly before his death,
00:42:13Lord Carnarvon suffered from inflammation
00:42:15around his nose and eyes.
00:42:18This, too, is a potential symptom
00:42:20of an Aspergillus infection.
00:42:24So, at least two of the deaths blamed on the curse
00:42:28appear to have a scientific explanation.
00:42:32But what about the other men
00:42:34who worked with Howard Carter on site at the tomb?
00:42:37They would have been exposed
00:42:39to the same elements as Carnarvon and Gould.
00:42:46One of Carter's closest colleagues, Arthur Mace,
00:42:49spent untold hours in the tomb.
00:42:54Mace was a brilliant archaeologist
00:42:56based at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
00:42:59He specialized in the preservation of ancient artifacts.
00:43:03And in Tut's tomb, he had over 5,000 of them to work with.
00:43:08Mace was a contemporary of Carter's
00:43:10and somebody with a long history
00:43:12of working on archaeological excavation,
00:43:14somebody who would know objects very well.
00:43:17In Egypt, Mace quickly became Carter's right-hand man.
00:43:21The two created detailed records of thousands of treasures.
00:43:25But the work had its challenges.
00:43:29This massive, extremely delicate task
00:43:32doesn't play out in the luxury of an air-conditioned laboratory.
00:43:38For Carter and Mace,
00:43:40this is taking place in the heat of the desert
00:43:42in the Valley of the Kings,
00:43:44inside the tomb, which is very, very cramped.
00:43:48And you've got blazing sunshine.
00:43:51You've got the press, tourists, VIPs
00:43:54getting in your way all over the place.
00:43:56Conditions were very, very difficult.
00:44:00With temperatures reaching over 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
00:44:03Mace and Carter desperately needed a cool place to work.
00:44:08A nearby tomb seemed to be the answer.
00:44:15Tutankhamun's tomb was so small and tight
00:44:19that when they removed the artifacts,
00:44:21they had to take them somewhere safe
00:44:23and also somewhere that was close by.
00:44:26So this was the lab?
00:44:27This was the lab.
00:44:29What was the process of taking care of those artifacts?
00:44:33Mace was setting up this wonderful lab.
00:44:35He had a little bit of a chemistry set going down there
00:44:38with Bunsen burners and all of his chemicals.
00:44:41What kind of stuff were they breathing in?
00:44:43Well, I mean, you've got normal dust, which you can't avoid,
00:44:47and then anything that the objects themselves were giving off.
00:44:50They would have had little gas stoves
00:44:53to boil things up and to test things,
00:44:55and they didn't have any fans.
00:44:57He would just be sitting here with fumes and dust and whatever
00:45:02and inhaling all of that.
00:45:06Mace excavated hundreds of Tut's treasures.
00:45:11But his health started to deteriorate
00:45:13before he could finish the job.
00:45:17And less than two years after he arrived,
00:45:19he had to leave Egypt.
00:45:22Like Carnarvon and Gould,
00:45:24Mace suffered from lung disease.
00:45:27In four years, he too would be dead.
00:45:37The press was quick to blame Mace's death
00:45:39on King Tut's curse.
00:45:43But was there a real connection
00:45:45between Mace's demise and his work excavating Tut's treasures?
00:45:52Dr. Hutan Ashrafian,
00:45:54the expert on pneumonia and disease in ancient Egypt,
00:45:57thinks it's possible.
00:45:59Arthur Mace was aware of how much dust was inside the tombs.
00:46:03What effect would that have had on his health?
00:46:06Dust in your airways or lungs
00:46:09can lead to many, many chronic diseases.
00:46:12In Arthur Mace's case,
00:46:14the type of dust that he would have been exposed to
00:46:16includes silicon dioxide.
00:46:19The sand in the Sahara Desert that encompasses Egypt
00:46:22contains microscopic quartz crystals
00:46:25known as silicon dioxide.
00:46:28It's found in tombs and is inhaled,
00:46:30and it's small enough to go through the airways.
00:46:33And so he would have been readily exposed
00:46:35to the problems of silicosis.
00:46:37And silicosis is a condition of the lungs.
00:46:40Foreign bodies get trapped in the airways,
00:46:43and the body's own defence mechanisms
00:46:46tries to come in, clear them from the airways,
00:46:49and fails to do so.
00:46:51As a result, there's this streaming of these chemicals
00:46:53from the body and the cells.
00:46:55They fail to heal the lung,
00:46:57and the lung then gets scarred and contracts
00:46:59and is unable to function normally,
00:47:01and then you result in a specimen like this.
00:47:04And I guess Arthur Mace was somebody who spent years
00:47:08in tombs, in environments constantly surrounded by dust,
00:47:11blowing dust off specimens.
00:47:13That was his day job.
00:47:15So, overexposure to these microscopic particles
00:47:18could have been a factor in Mace's death.
00:47:23But back in Egypt, scientists have made
00:47:25another shocking discovery.
00:47:28Silicon dioxide wasn't the only
00:47:30potentially deadly poison in King Tut's tomb.
00:47:35The pyramids, tombs, and relics of ancient Egypt
00:47:39that we study today have endured thousands of brutal years
00:47:43in an unforgiving desert.
00:47:45Yet, the most impressive things to survive
00:47:47may be the most delicate.
00:47:49The vibrant, colourful paintings
00:47:51inside the tombs of Egypt.
00:47:53Long before the invention of oil paint,
00:47:55artists used pigments from nature
00:47:57to create hues that have lasted for millennia.
00:48:00Malachite, for example,
00:48:02lasted for millennia.
00:48:04Malachite for green, ochre for red,
00:48:06and charcoal for black.
00:48:08But the bright blue we see most
00:48:10does not occur naturally.
00:48:12Egyptian blue is actually
00:48:14history's first synthetic colour.
00:48:16Made from sand, lime,
00:48:18sodium carbonate, and copper,
00:48:20once it was mixed together and melted
00:48:22at a very high temperature,
00:48:24artists had the bright blue colour
00:48:26that still dazzles us today.
00:48:28Tragically, though, there appears to be
00:48:30another ancient concoction
00:48:32that has contributed to the legend of Tut's curse.
00:48:41In Cairo, scientists at the Egyptian Museum
00:48:44have been analysing treasures
00:48:46found in ancient burial chambers.
00:48:50They've made a discovery that could help
00:48:52explain the unusual number of deaths
00:48:54linked to King Tut.
00:48:57Of particular interest here
00:48:59is the death of Arthur Mace,
00:49:01one of the archaeologists
00:49:03who excavated Tutankhamun's tomb.
00:49:06Researchers have turned their focus
00:49:08to a precious substance
00:49:10Mace handled regularly,
00:49:12a pigment called orpiment.
00:49:14Orpiment is a mineral
00:49:16that's found in the eastern desert
00:49:18in the Sinai in Egypt.
00:49:20It was bright and shining like the sun,
00:49:22and gold is the skin of the gods.
00:49:24Ancient Egyptians would have taken this mineral,
00:49:26grounded up, and made a pigment.
00:49:28Prized for its yellow colour,
00:49:30orpiment was used widely
00:49:32in ancient Egyptian painting.
00:49:35It was also used on the treasures
00:49:37in Tut's tomb.
00:49:40But could its chemical composition
00:49:42pose a threat to excavators?
00:49:45To find out,
00:49:47conservator Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim
00:49:49prepares a test called X-ray fluorescence.
00:49:53The lasers are going to shoot out
00:49:55X-rays from the machine.
00:49:57It's going to hit the pigments,
00:49:59and then a unique chemical signature
00:50:01is going to bounce back and appear
00:50:03on the computer screens.
00:50:06You can just see the peaks going right now,
00:50:08just up and down. This is incredible.
00:50:10It's amazing, yeah.
00:50:12What's the highest peak? What's that?
00:50:14It's calcium.
00:50:16It's a stone made of calcium carbonate.
00:50:18So that's not of a massive concern.
00:50:20But we have ES, it's arsenic.
00:50:22That's the next massive peak?
00:50:24Yes.
00:50:26So that's...
00:50:28It's a large quantity of arsenic in that.
00:50:30Short-term exposure, probably not
00:50:32going to cause you death.
00:50:34But long-term exposure, that is potentially hazardous.
00:50:38But Arthur Mace had a habit
00:50:40that might have made his exposure
00:50:42to arsenic more intense.
00:50:44We know from the notes
00:50:46that Mace probably did
00:50:48taste test some of the materials.
00:50:50Like, in the notes, it'll say, oh, it tastes a bit salty.
00:50:52Why was he taste testing?
00:50:54That is a mystery to me.
00:50:56I would certainly not do it.
00:50:58Would you taste test? No, never.
00:51:00I am sympathetic to Mace.
00:51:02They had minimal technology at that time,
00:51:04and you kind of used
00:51:06whatever you had available.
00:51:08So if you wanted to know if there was salts on something,
00:51:10maybe you give a little taste test
00:51:12to figure out if there's some salts.
00:51:14So poisons in the tomb
00:51:16might have accelerated
00:51:18or even caused the death of Arthur Mace.
00:51:22But like Lord Carnarvon
00:51:24and the millionaire George J. Gould,
00:51:26the press added Mace to the list of victims
00:51:28of King Tut's curse.
00:51:32Throughout the 1920s,
00:51:34as Tut's curse captivated readers
00:51:36around the world,
00:51:38a frustrated Howard Carter
00:51:40saw the myth as a distraction
00:51:42from his great discovery.
00:51:44He thought that it made a mockery
00:51:46of the deaths of his closest friends and colleagues.
00:51:50For all of this, he blamed one man,
00:51:52the former archaeologist
00:51:54turned journalist Arthur Weigel.
00:51:58Howard Carter
00:52:00had a monopoly
00:52:02with the London Times.
00:52:04And in order for Weigel
00:52:06to compete, he needed
00:52:08a compelling other story.
00:52:10In other words,
00:52:12the Times is reporting this,
00:52:14we have to report something
00:52:16that is not in the Times.
00:52:18And the parallel story
00:52:20was to take an opposite,
00:52:22quote, non-scientific tact.
00:52:24Weigel
00:52:26needed to generate readership
00:52:28and said, I'm going to write it anyway
00:52:30because the people eat it up.
00:52:34As the years went by,
00:52:36the curse Weigel created
00:52:38took on a life of its own.
00:52:40The media would never give up
00:52:42on the curse story.
00:52:44And in the Courier and Advertiser
00:52:46of 1929,
00:52:48seven years
00:52:50after the death of Carnarvon,
00:52:52we read an article
00:52:54with the headline, Curse of the Pharaohs,
00:52:56Tenth Discover of the Tomb
00:52:58Stricken Down.
00:53:00And the article then goes on to explain
00:53:02how a Dr. Jonathan Carver
00:53:04was killed
00:53:06in an automobile accident
00:53:08when he visited the tomb.
00:53:10And this is yet another attempt
00:53:12by the media
00:53:14to continue the story.
00:53:18Ultimately, the curse Weigel popularized
00:53:20cast a shadow on his own death
00:53:22as well.
00:53:24The Curse of Arthur Weigel.
00:53:26Did Mr. Arthur Weigel
00:53:28die himself
00:53:30as a result of the curse?
00:53:32Sir Ernest A. Wallace Budge,
00:53:34the greatest living Egyptologist,
00:53:36expressed the following opinion
00:53:38to me yesterday.
00:53:40It is my firm belief that Arthur Weigel
00:53:42died the unfortunate victim of a curse.
00:53:44It was not perhaps
00:53:46any royal curse, but one
00:53:48self-induced.
00:53:50There's no love lost between those two.
00:53:52Mr. Weigel died
00:53:54in a London hospital as a result
00:53:56of hashish eating
00:53:58and addiction to other drugs.
00:54:00The allegations
00:54:02Budge made against Weigel
00:54:04were false and appeared to be motivated
00:54:06by a bitter professional rivalry.
00:54:10The Express newspaper apologized,
00:54:12but their attempt to link Weigel's death
00:54:14to the curse only made it
00:54:16more persistent.
00:54:18As the curse continued
00:54:20to evolve, another hypothesis
00:54:22began to take root.
00:54:24The theory that the hidden killer behind
00:54:26these deaths wasn't supernatural,
00:54:28it was scientific.
00:54:30Howard Carter had been quick
00:54:32to reject any connection between
00:54:34modern-day deaths and the tomb,
00:54:36but could he reject science?
00:54:42Curses are as old as
00:54:44history, and though we usually
00:54:46associate them with ancient cultures
00:54:48like Egypt, even a young country like
00:54:50America has had its share.
00:54:52One such tale was the Tippecanoe
00:54:54Curse, which was said to have claimed
00:54:56seven U.S. presidents.
00:54:58Starting with William Henry Harrison in 1840,
00:55:00every 20 years, the country
00:55:02elected a president who would die
00:55:04in office. So, what's the curse?
00:55:06Legend held that it was cast on
00:55:08Harrison by Shawnee Chief
00:55:10Tecumseh after U.S. troops
00:55:12defeated his tribe at the Battle of
00:55:14Tippecanoe in 1811.
00:55:16But the facts just don't hold up
00:55:18to scrutiny. The Shawnee have no
00:55:20knowledge of such a curse.
00:55:22Much like 20th century urban legends
00:55:24about the hazards of disturbing
00:55:26indigenous burial grounds, the curse
00:55:28plays on stereotypes of native
00:55:30people. And, by the way, the math
00:55:32doesn't even work. The last president
00:55:34to die in office was JFK
00:55:36almost 60 years ago.
00:55:38But as history has shown, sometimes
00:55:40a far-fetched myth is easier
00:55:42to believe than cold, hard facts.
00:55:51By 1923, a year
00:55:53after its discovery, the tomb of
00:55:55Tutankhamun was the most famous
00:55:57archaeological site in the world.
00:55:59The deaths of multiple
00:56:01men linked to the tomb
00:56:03only increased its notoriety,
00:56:05especially
00:56:07as the press attributed the deaths
00:56:09to King Tut's curse.
00:56:13But then, a new theory
00:56:15began to circulate.
00:56:17People started to realize that
00:56:19Carnarvon, Gould, and Mace
00:56:21all suffered from the same lung affliction
00:56:23at the time of their deaths.
00:56:25Could a toxic pathogen
00:56:27inside Tut's tomb have infected
00:56:29them all?
00:56:33Howard Carter rejected the theory.
00:56:35He thought the 3,000-year-old
00:56:37tomb was too ancient to
00:56:39contain anything living.
00:56:41And he enlisted scientists to prove
00:56:43it.
00:56:45In 1925, Carter
00:56:47opened Tut's sarcophagus for the very
00:56:49first time.
00:56:51He shared swabs taken from the mummy
00:56:53with British microbiologists.
00:56:55This
00:56:57little report in a newspaper
00:56:59of the examination
00:57:01of some of the bandages
00:57:03from the tomb, which was not
00:57:05undertaken by Carter himself, but by
00:57:07Dr. A.C. Tason
00:57:09with Carter's blessing,
00:57:11revealed that
00:57:13the bandages from Tutankhamun's mummy
00:57:15were found to contain no bacteria.
00:57:19And this short report makes it
00:57:21very clear that this
00:57:23survey or this study was undertaken
00:57:25in order to disprove those ideas.
00:57:29Carter wanted a robust scientific
00:57:31denial so as to just
00:57:33knock it on the head, you know, just get rid
00:57:35of it.
00:57:37But science has come a long way in the
00:57:39century since Tutankhamun was found.
00:57:45Now, using modern technology,
00:57:47those tests can be replicated
00:57:49and could potentially identify
00:57:51deadly microbes that Carter's
00:57:53scientists could have missed.
00:57:55But first, new
00:57:57samples from an ancient tomb need
00:57:59to be obtained. Most of
00:58:01the Valley of the Kings has been excavated
00:58:03and is now a tourist center.
00:58:05But 400 miles
00:58:07north in Saqqara, archaeologists
00:58:09have discovered a network of
00:58:11undisturbed Egyptian tombs.
00:58:13Saqqara was
00:58:15the cemetery, the necropolis of
00:58:17Memphis, the first
00:58:19capital of unified
00:58:21Egypt.
00:58:23Here are buried
00:58:25kings, high officials
00:58:27like viziers, but
00:58:29also common people.
00:58:31Thousands,
00:58:33perhaps hundreds
00:58:35of thousands of people.
00:58:41Saqqara was first excavated in the 19th
00:58:43century, but in recent years,
00:58:45archaeologists have discovered dozens
00:58:47of new tombs.
00:59:15New shafts, mummies, coffins.
00:59:17But
00:59:1950% of the monuments
00:59:21of Saqqara are still hidden below
00:59:23the sands.
00:59:25This
00:59:27location offers the most promise
00:59:29for finding a mummy with properties
00:59:31similar to those of King Tut.
00:59:33The necropolis
00:59:35here basks in the glory of
00:59:37Egypt's first great monument,
00:59:39the step pyramid of Zoser.
00:59:41The pharaoh
00:59:43Zoser's 200-foot-tall pyramid
00:59:45was designed by a talented
00:59:47statesman and architect known
00:59:49as Imhotep. Born
00:59:51over 4,500 years ago,
00:59:53Imhotep wasn't a pharaoh,
00:59:55but his achievements were so revered
00:59:57that after his death, he was
00:59:59worshipped like a god.
01:00:05The step pyramid is surrounded
01:00:07by dozens of crumbling tombs
01:00:09and smaller monuments.
01:00:11But Zoser's tomb was planned
01:00:13on a vastly different scale,
01:00:15and Imhotep built it to last.
01:00:17I want
01:00:19to make a monument for eternity.
01:00:21Wattle and daub
01:00:23are perishable materials.
01:00:25They will not survive.
01:00:27But I know
01:00:29that stone is the most durable
01:00:31element in my landscape.
01:00:33And if I can create
01:00:35a mortuary monument
01:00:37in stone,
01:00:39it will live forever.
01:00:45But sadly, the pharaoh's
01:00:47remains have been lost to history,
01:00:49stolen by ancient thieves.
01:00:51So Zoser can't be the source
01:00:53of the samples needed to retest
01:00:55the theory that tomb occupants
01:00:57can carry deadly pathogens.
01:01:01But just a few hundred feet away,
01:01:03a mummy has been found. And as
01:01:05a result, the microbial tests
01:01:07that showed nothing in 1925
01:01:09can finally be repeated today
01:01:11with modern technology.
01:01:13Will King Tut's curse
01:01:15finally be put to rest?
01:01:25Near the pyramids of Saqqara,
01:01:27a team is excavating
01:01:29an ancient necropolis,
01:01:31a network of tombs,
01:01:33some decorated with astonishing
01:01:35remains.
01:01:37But for the investigation into the truth
01:01:39behind King Tut's curse,
01:01:41it contains something far more
01:01:43important, ancient burials.
01:01:47Could a mummy found here
01:01:49hold clues that might
01:01:51scientifically explain the deaths
01:01:53associated with Tut's tomb?
01:01:55To find out,
01:01:57heritage scientist Dr. Abdelrazak
01:01:59el-Najjar is conducting
01:02:01microbial analysis on the remains
01:02:03of a mummy found.
01:02:05And he has the perfect sample to test.
01:02:07A mummy that's over
01:02:092,000 years old.
01:02:13My role is to investigate
01:02:15any microbial damage
01:02:17on the mummy itself because
01:02:19organic materials are perfect for fungal
01:02:21and bacterial growth. And the mummy
01:02:23has a skin and also the
01:02:25wrapping is made of linen,
01:02:27which is material as well. And also
01:02:29wood is made of cellulose material,
01:02:31which is perfect for fungal growth.
01:02:33So first we do a quick survey with
01:02:35ZOV to locate some spots for sampling
01:02:37to be taken for identification
01:02:39and cultivation later on in the lab.
01:02:41So we can just
01:02:43please switch on the light.
01:02:49A little bit overwhelming
01:02:51to actually see the mummy so close
01:02:53because you can clearly see the imprint
01:02:55of the nose and the mouth.
01:02:57And it's just a reminder of
01:02:59a real human being
01:03:01looking into the past like this. It's quite incredible.
01:03:05So under the UV light
01:03:07you can see some
01:03:09fungal colonies here.
01:03:11The tiny white spots
01:03:13suggest there may be
01:03:15ancient mould on the mummy.
01:03:17Is that my imagination or is that
01:03:19somewhat on the nose and mouth?
01:03:21Yes.
01:03:23This is plant materials
01:03:25over the linen itself.
01:03:27Oh, this is quite emotional.
01:03:29That means that somebody has buried this individual
01:03:31with flowers. That's a very
01:03:33emotional thing to lay on a body
01:03:35and that's...
01:03:37And the function of this kind of plants also could be for
01:03:39religious purposes and also
01:03:41for mummification point of view
01:03:43because it could be a repellent to some
01:03:45insects. So it might not just be
01:03:47a spiritual...
01:03:49It might have a very practical purpose.
01:03:51We can find
01:03:53ancient fungi here, which
01:03:55is already died, but the DNA
01:03:57material inside could live for
01:03:59thousands of years.
01:04:03Nearly a century
01:04:05ago, Howard Carter asked
01:04:07experts to test samples from
01:04:09Tutankhamun's mummy.
01:04:11He wanted to disprove a rumour
01:04:13that it contained deadly pathogens
01:04:15and at the time, Carter
01:04:17was proven correct.
01:04:21Now, could modern day tests
01:04:23uncover pathogens that
01:04:25Carter's scientists missed?
01:04:31So we started the process of the cultivation
01:04:33and also incubation and
01:04:35purification of the fungal species
01:04:37and we found really very interesting
01:04:39results. After
01:04:41one week of incubation, we can see
01:04:43the colonists coming up
01:04:45and we can see the very clear
01:04:47characteristic of Aspergillus flavus.
01:04:49Aspergillus flavus.
01:04:51The same fungus that was identified
01:04:53in Poland, where 10 people
01:04:55reportedly died after entering
01:04:57the ancient tomb of King Casimir
01:04:59IV.
01:05:01Now, this same
01:05:03deadly mould has been found on
01:05:05ancient Egyptian mummies.
01:05:07But could one form of mould
01:05:09be responsible for the variety
01:05:11of deaths attributed to
01:05:13King Tut?
01:05:19It's doubtful that
01:05:21tomb raiders through the centuries have been
01:05:23overly concerned about deadly mould.
01:05:25After all, for anyone breaking
01:05:27into a tomb during ancient times,
01:05:29there were other more, shall we say
01:05:31pointed measures in place to stop
01:05:33them in their tracks. Huge pits
01:05:35lined with spikes were sometimes
01:05:37built into passageways.
01:05:39In most cases though, the best defense
01:05:41for a tomb was to hide it.
01:05:43Passages would be blocked with enormous
01:05:45stones that were impossible to move.
01:05:47Entrances were plastered over,
01:05:49so thieves thought they were solid
01:05:51walls. But despite what Indiana
01:05:53Jones tells us, no one that we know
01:05:55of has been chased by a giant boulder
01:05:57yet.
01:06:03Using modern technology, experts
01:06:05have discovered a deadly mould living
01:06:07on ancient mummies,
01:06:09Aspergillus flavus.
01:06:11Could it provide a scientific
01:06:13explanation for King Tut's curse?
01:06:17Dr. Houtan Ashrafian
01:06:19weighs in.
01:06:21This is a plate from the body in Egypt
01:06:23and clearly it's growing
01:06:25a fungus. This is classical
01:06:27Aspergillus. They live on
01:06:29dead bodies or decaying
01:06:31matter, and so nearly every
01:06:33human environment will have them. They can
01:06:35cause lung infections, but we are
01:06:37only prone to suffering disease from them
01:06:39when we get either exposed to a high dose
01:06:41or our immune system is weakened.
01:06:43So from a tomb
01:06:45in Egypt where ancient
01:06:47mummies existed,
01:06:49the exposure of Aspergillus
01:06:51is there. And as a result,
01:06:53when we look back at
01:06:55the characters such as Mace,
01:06:57Carnarvon, George J. Gould,
01:06:59who would have been in the tomb
01:07:01of Tutankhamun, they would have also
01:07:03been exposed to Aspergillus.
01:07:05It could cause fevers,
01:07:07it can cause pneumonias, and
01:07:09can cause sepsis and death.
01:07:11After entering Tut's tomb,
01:07:13George J. Gould contracted
01:07:15a fever,
01:07:17Arthur Mace, a lung infection,
01:07:19and Lord Carnarvon,
01:07:21pneumonia with an inflammation
01:07:23of the nose and eyes.
01:07:25All symptoms of exposure
01:07:27to Aspergillus flavus.
01:07:31These men had a variety of ailments,
01:07:33but Aspergillus poisoning fits
01:07:35as a cause or contributing
01:07:37factor to their death.
01:07:39How much was known about
01:07:41all of this in the 1920s?
01:07:43The understanding of biology and
01:07:45infectious disease had begun
01:07:47in the 1920s, but it wasn't known
01:07:49to archaeologists. And when
01:07:51Carter, Carnarvon,
01:07:53Mace would have
01:07:55entered the tomb and worked in that
01:07:57space, the risks they were thinking of
01:07:59were the different authorities
01:08:01and their competitors to finding that
01:08:03tomb, rather than themselves
01:08:05being exposed to Aspergillus.
01:08:07Rather than themselves being exposed
01:08:09to biology as a potential pathogen.
01:08:13So we now know
01:08:15that Howard Carter was wrong.
01:08:17Human remains in ancient
01:08:19Egyptian tombs may contain
01:08:21potentially lethal pathogens.
01:08:23A hundred
01:08:25years later, it is impossible to
01:08:27prove that Carnarvon, Gould,
01:08:29and Mace were victims of Aspergillus.
01:08:31But the fact
01:08:33that all three men contracted
01:08:35lung infections after entering
01:08:37Tutankhamun's tomb is a
01:08:39commonality that cannot be ignored.
01:08:43And it may
01:08:45in fact be the evidence that provides
01:08:47a scientific explanation
01:08:49for King Tut's curse.
01:08:53For Luxor dig
01:08:55foreman Mahmud, whose great
01:08:57grandfather excavated Tut's tomb,
01:08:59the risks of exploring ancient
01:09:01tombs comes as no surprise.
01:09:03For example, he's been warned
01:09:05to avoid working with open wounds.
01:09:17Three to four days before you
01:09:19start working?
01:09:21Like my father, you know, from his father,
01:09:23tell me they have a shape and they have
01:09:25something like a crack,
01:09:27you know, yeah, something
01:09:29inside, inside the blood.
01:09:31Like a microbe or something might go into the cut.
01:09:33Even if it's like a microbe
01:09:35or something, you will kill him.
01:09:37But back in Carter's time though,
01:09:39they didn't do that.
01:09:41No, I don't think he do this.
01:09:45Carter continued his research
01:09:47on Tut's tomb for a decade,
01:09:49notably not falling ill himself.
01:09:53But the curse story continued to gain
01:09:55traction.
01:09:57He watched angrily as the press
01:09:59put out more and more sensational
01:10:01stories.
01:10:03And as the years went
01:10:05by, he dealt with his frustration
01:10:07the only way he could,
01:10:09with an obsessive devotion to his
01:10:11work.
01:10:15Carter was tenacious.
01:10:17You have to admire him.
01:10:19He was completely consumed
01:10:21in his professional
01:10:23activity. It's estimated
01:10:25that there were 5,300
01:10:27objects in that tomb.
01:10:29There was every
01:10:31obstacle put in Carter's
01:10:33way to prevent him from finishing
01:10:35the task of registering
01:10:37those tombs. And he took it upon himself
01:10:39to get them out,
01:10:41to photograph them, and
01:10:43to conserve them.
01:10:45And we,
01:10:47a hundred years after the discovery of the tomb,
01:10:49have to recognize
01:10:51how indebted we are.
01:10:55If there was
01:10:57a curse for Carter, it was self-imposed,
01:10:59an obsession that
01:11:01didn't stop even after he had spent
01:11:03ten years excavating Tut's tomb.
01:11:07He became
01:11:09focused on finding the burial site
01:11:11of an even greater figure from world
01:11:13history,
01:11:15Alexander the Great.
01:11:25By 1932, Howard Carter's
01:11:27excavations in the Valley of the Kings
01:11:29were complete.
01:11:31But his obsession for tomb
01:11:33hunting was as strong as ever,
01:11:35and he went after an even greater
01:11:37target, the tomb of Alexander
01:11:39the Great.
01:11:41I think this speaks to a really,
01:11:43really interesting and little-known
01:11:45aspect of the last years
01:11:47of Carter's career.
01:11:49We all know that he makes his great discovery
01:11:51in the Valley of the Kings. What's not
01:11:53so well-known is that Carter
01:11:55apparently wasn't going to stop there.
01:11:57This tells us that
01:11:59Mr. Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb
01:12:01of Tutankhamun, is convinced
01:12:03that Alexander the Great is buried in Alexandria.
01:12:05He hopes to search for the tomb
01:12:07when he secures the necessary funds.
01:12:09Alexander the Great
01:12:11was the ancient Macedonian king
01:12:13who built one of the greatest empires
01:12:15in history.
01:12:17Numerous sources
01:12:19suggest that Carter
01:12:21felt he knew where the tomb
01:12:23of Alexander the Great was going to be
01:12:25found. I guess, knowing
01:12:27loads of archaeologists, it's
01:12:29actually weird if one of them finds
01:12:31something really big and then goes,
01:12:33all right, I'm done. You name one,
01:12:35I'm good.
01:12:37They don't. So perhaps
01:12:39in some way, he's an archaeological
01:12:41gambler, and we know that, you know, part
01:12:43of the makeup of a gambler is that it's difficult
01:12:45to stop, even when you've won.
01:12:47So yeah, perhaps
01:12:49he really did think, one final throw of the dice,
01:12:51you know, I have done this, but actually
01:12:53there's more.
01:12:55This time,
01:12:57Carter wouldn't be as lucky.
01:12:59He never got the chance
01:13:01to search for Alexander.
01:13:03And despite
01:13:05discovering Tutankhamun,
01:13:07as the years passed, the glory faded.
01:13:09He never got to enjoy the recognition
01:13:11he deserved.
01:13:13If you read
01:13:15everything written about him,
01:13:17if you read everything that Carter
01:13:19wrote about himself,
01:13:21you find out that he is a very,
01:13:23very isolated, lonely individual.
01:13:27And he was never
01:13:29able to bask
01:13:31in the spotlight of glory
01:13:33for what he did.
01:13:35He never got a royal reception.
01:13:37He was never invited to
01:13:39a red carpet event.
01:13:41He was always shunted aside.
01:13:47Howard Carter is a
01:13:49very, very tragic figure.
01:13:51A figure that
01:13:53maybe should be more lamented than he
01:13:55really is.
01:13:57You have this individual
01:13:59whose fame
01:14:01is all over the place today.
01:14:03But during his lifetime,
01:14:05he never enjoyed it.
01:14:07And when he
01:14:09died, virtually
01:14:11no one attended the
01:14:13burial.
01:14:15Howard Carter
01:14:17died on March 2, 1939.
01:14:21Newspapers reported
01:14:23that just five mourners attended
01:14:25the funeral.
01:14:27Howard Carter was not the showman.
01:14:29He was always an outsider.
01:14:31But he had all these other
01:14:33attributes and qualities.
01:14:35He was determined. He did not give up.
01:14:37He had an absolute obsession
01:14:39with detail. And it was that
01:14:41combination that led him
01:14:43back to the Valley of the Kings
01:14:45when everybody else had given up
01:14:47to discover the tomb
01:14:49that would completely transform
01:14:51archaeology.
01:14:55In the century since Tut's tomb was
01:14:57first opened, that glittering
01:14:59discovery has deepened our fascination
01:15:01and our obsession with
01:15:03ancient Egypt.
01:15:05As for the deaths once blamed on
01:15:07King Tut, what was once thought of
01:15:09as a curse now has a plausible
01:15:11scientific explanation.
01:15:15And Tutankhamun's tomb
01:15:17has a far greater legacy than
01:15:19this dark legend.
01:15:23Tutankhamun's tomb is a love letter
01:15:25to archaeology, to exploration,
01:15:27to discovery.
01:15:31It's the thing that most of us dream
01:15:33of finding. But no,
01:15:35we probably never will.
01:15:37But Tut's tomb,
01:15:39it's proof of what is
01:15:41possible. It exists.
01:15:43And therefore, it's the reason
01:15:45why archaeologists every single
01:15:47year head out into the desert.
01:15:49Thanks to Howard Carter's
01:15:51obsession,
01:15:53a new generation
01:15:55is looking for wonders for us to
01:15:57understand.
01:15:59And so on any given dig,
01:16:01maybe, just maybe,
01:16:03the next big discovery
01:16:05lies just beneath the
01:16:07sands.
01:16:11Today, 100 years
01:16:13after Carter's great discovery,
01:16:15you might wonder if the graveyards in Egypt
01:16:17have given up all their secrets.
01:16:19What's left to find? Quite a lot,
01:16:21actually. At least four
01:16:23pharaohs, each more powerful in their
01:16:25day than Tut, have yet to be unearthed.
01:16:27Queen Nefertiti's tomb
01:16:29remains missing. And recently,
01:16:31an entire city was found in
01:16:33the foothills of the Valley of the Kings.
01:16:35But like Howard Carter before
01:16:37us, we've learned that as soon as we celebrate
01:16:39one discovery, another challenge
01:16:41rises to be conquered.
01:16:43So we keep digging, both out of
01:16:45a love for ancient Egypt, and to
01:16:47satisfy a curiosity we
01:16:49know may never be quenched.
01:16:51The mysteries that swirl around their
01:16:53otherworldly ruins will continue
01:16:55to fuel our desire
01:16:57to find more of who the ancient
01:16:59Egyptians were, and learn
01:17:01from what they have left for us to find.