Qualla: Curse of the pharaohs https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/curse-of-the-pharaohs-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Curse of the pharaohs https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs Curse of the pharaohs: Introduction https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Jerzy Strzelecki, CC BY-SA 3.0. No curse was ever found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. That fact is worth stating plainly, because the opposite belief has become one of the most durable stories in the world. When Howard Carter's team broke into the boy king's burial in 1922, they found gold, alabaster, and a sealed inner chamber, but no inscription threatening death to those who entered. The famous warning about death coming on swift wings was invented by newspapers. The curse of the pharaohs is real, but real as folklore, a tale born in European imagination and fed by a string of unlucky coincidences, not as anything the ancient Egyptians left behind.

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Image: Jerzy Strzelecki | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/curse-of-the-pharaohs-wp/ssx4-curse-of-the-pharaohs-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Curse of the pharaohs: The Death That Started It https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Harry Burton, Public domain. The legend needed a body, and in April 1923 it got one. Lord Carnarvon, the wealthy Englishman who had financed Carter's dig, died in Cairo just months after the tomb was opened. The cause was mundane and sad: a mosquito bite he nicked while shaving, which became infected and spr...

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Image: Harry Burton | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/curse-of-the-pharaohs-wp/ssx4-curse-of-the-pharaohs-the-death-that-started-it.mp3 0:06 2 full Curse of the pharaohs: Omens and Headlines https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Harry Burton, Public domain. Once the story took hold, every coincidence became evidence. On the day the tomb was opened, a cobra, the serpent of Egyptian royalty, was said to have eaten Carter's pet canary, and the tale spread as an omen. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a devoted ...

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Image: Harry Burton | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/curse-of-the-pharaohs-wp/ssx4-curse-of-the-pharaohs-omens-and-headlines.mp3 0:06 3 full Curse of the pharaohs: What the Numbers Say https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Harry Burton, Public domain. The trouble with the curse is that it spared almost everyone. Of the fifty-eight people present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years, hardly the toll a vengeful pharaoh might be expected to take. Howard Carter, the man who actually unsea...

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Image: Harry Burton | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/curse-of-the-pharaohs-wp/ssx4-curse-of-the-pharaohs-what-the-numbers-say.mp3 0:06 4 full Curse of the pharaohs: Science, Folklore, and the Stubborn Tale https://qualla.com/curse-of-the-pharaohs/ Photo credit Harry Burton, Public domain. Modern attempts to rescue the legend have looked to biology rather than magic. Sealed tombs can harbor molds, including Aspergillus flavus, whose spores have been blamed for illnesses after other tomb openings, and some have wondered whether such pathogens contributed to a few of...

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Image: Harry Burton | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/curse-of-the-pharaohs-wp/ssx4-curse-of-the-pharaohs-science-folklore-and-the-stubborn-tale.mp3 0:06 5 full