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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb, and today we have Ancient Egyptian Curses

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Speaker 1: Part 2. It originally published 10-2-2025. Go in, take your chances,

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Speaker 1: finish it up. We'll meet you on the other side.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick. And finally, that first October

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Speaker 2: chill is in the air. Rob, I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you can see on the chat here, I am wearing

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Speaker 2: a long-sleeve shirt today. It's very exciting at our house.

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Speaker 2: We love the month of October, of course, and my

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Speaker 2: daughter especially is just thrilled that it's actually October. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if we've talked about this yet, but she

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Speaker 2: is obsessed with Halloween decorations. So she, like, You know,

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Speaker 2: the biggest thing she wants to do right now is

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Speaker 2: go out and see which houses in our neighborhood have

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Speaker 2: already put Selkens out, skeletons and vampires and all that.

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Speaker 2: And there's this wonderful, like, attraction repulsion to certain Halloween decorations. Like,

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Speaker 2: there's a scary vampire that she wants to see, but

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Speaker 2: then she's like, I'm going to have to close my eyes,

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Speaker 2: but I want to see it.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen the new big skeletons that are out?

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Speaker 2: I don't know about the new big skeletons.

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Speaker 1: Because we had the big skeletons that just look like,

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Speaker 1: you know, a giant skeleton standing in a yard. But

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Speaker 1: this season, there are new ones where it looks like

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Speaker 1: an even bigger skeleton is climbing out of the ground

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Speaker 1: of somebody's front yard. These are popping up throughout our neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: and they're pretty great. Like, you can make a big

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Speaker 1: case for a lot of things in the world being

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Speaker 1: in decline, but not front yard skeletons. This is an

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Speaker 1: area that we're absolutely on the up and up with. Wow.

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Speaker 2: I don't think I've seen that. We've seen partially buried skeletons.

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Speaker 2: It's almost a joke thing where people have like a

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Speaker 2: skull and then some skeleton hands and feet. But it's

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Speaker 2: like the body is underground, like it's sort of, I

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Speaker 2: don't know, half buried.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, hello, listeners.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: If you're new to the show and you're not familiar

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Speaker 2: with our seasonal traditions, here's the deal. Of course, Rob

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Speaker 2: and I are both Halloween heads. So every October, all

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Speaker 2: month long, we indulge our monster obsessed brains. And we

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Speaker 2: devote all of our core episodes to spooky stuff, witchy stuff.

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Speaker 2: And we also make sure that all of our Friday

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Speaker 2: Weird House cinema selections are in the horror genre. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we talk about horror a good bit.

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Speaker 1: It's not hard for us to do.

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Speaker 2: Throughout the rest of the year, too. But we really

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Speaker 2: drill in on horror or Weird House in October. So, yeah,

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Speaker 2: if you are new to our October season offerings. Last year,

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Speaker 2: our core episodes in October were about what we did

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Speaker 2: a series on haunted locomotives and railroad madness. There was

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Speaker 2: a period where people were convinced that trains were creating

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Speaker 2: railway madmen. We talked about the demonology of ancient Mesopotamia.

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Speaker 2: We talked about pig monsters in a series called The

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Speaker 2: Hogs of Hell, getting into mythological monstrous pigs. And then

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Speaker 2: also the paleontology record of what kind of pig-like animals

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Speaker 2: that would actually horrify you did exist in reality at

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Speaker 2: one point. And then finally, we did an entry in

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Speaker 2: our Grimoire of Horror series where we each pick a

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Speaker 2: horror short story to discuss and relate it usually back

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Speaker 2: to some kind of science or science-adjacent topic. And this year,

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Speaker 2: we've got a whole month of stuff like that in

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Speaker 2: store for you. So, yeah, if you're new, stick with us.

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Speaker 2: Of course, also, if you're old, stick with us as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.

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Speaker 2: But earlier this week, we got a jump on things.

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Speaker 2: Before October had technically begun, we got a head start

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Speaker 2: on things with part one of the series that we're

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Speaker 2: continuing today on ancient Egyptian curses. So if you haven't

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Speaker 2: heard that first episode, I would recommend going back and

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Speaker 2: listening first. to that first. You know, there are some

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Speaker 2: series where it makes more sense to listen out of order,

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Speaker 2: but the last time we really did kind of lay

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Speaker 2: the groundwork for today. But for a brief refresher, we

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Speaker 2: talked about the general context of magic in ancient Egypt

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Speaker 2: with some main points being, first of all, that to

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Speaker 2: the ancient Egyptians, there was not a clear distinction between

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Speaker 2: magic and religion like we see in some other religious

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Speaker 2: and cultural settings. In ancient Egypt, The use of magic

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Speaker 2: spells and temple-based religion were fully interwoven and practiced by

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Speaker 2: the same priests and authorities. And in fact, magic power

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Speaker 2: and magic spells were a fundamental part of the regular

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Speaker 2: public rites performed in Egyptian temples. So magic was sort

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Speaker 2: of part of everything, and even the gods needed it. Also,

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Speaker 2: we talked about how the Egyptian concept of magical power,

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Speaker 2: or hekkah, was not thought to be inherently good or evil,

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Speaker 2: but was a morally neutral power that could be harnessed

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Speaker 2: to do all kinds of things, to protect or to harm,

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Speaker 2: to heal or to destroy. And we talked about the

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Speaker 2: sometimes almost litigious or legal framing in which many ancient

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Speaker 2: Egyptians seemed to think about magic. Magic could be a

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Speaker 2: way of initiating supernatural legal proceedings.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: We also talked about a few particular curse texts, a

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Speaker 2: lot of great stuff about, you know, if you do

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Speaker 2: something bad in this tomb, going to wring your neck

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Speaker 2: like a goose, all that stuff. And we also talked

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Speaker 2: in general about kind of the main categories of curses

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Speaker 2: that you find in ancient Egypt. Of course, ancient Egypt

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Speaker 2: spans thousands of years and many millions of lives. So

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Speaker 2: it's actually a quite varied historical period to talk about.

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Speaker 2: You can't capture everything just in a little overview. But

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Speaker 2: the main trends we talked about were, first of all,

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Speaker 2: personal curses. These would be the more common kind of

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Speaker 2: curses you would think about if you're thinking in a

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Speaker 2: Christian witchcraft kind of framework. These would be where people

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Speaker 2: magically settled scores with enemies and with people who they

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Speaker 2: believed had wronged them or were oppressing them. There were

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Speaker 2: quite famously funerary curses, usually leveled against anyone who would loot, disturb,

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Speaker 2: or defile a tomb. There were political curses performed as

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Speaker 2: these execration rituals to bind, weaken, and destroy enemies of

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Speaker 2: the king and of the state. So this could include

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Speaker 2: rebels and the leaders of revolts, people the king perceived

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Speaker 2: as political traitors, princes of enemy nations, and so forth.

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Speaker 2: I'll talk about an example of this in just a bit.

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Speaker 2: But you might write their name on a clay vessel

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Speaker 2: or otherwise somehow symbolically link them to an effigy and

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Speaker 2: then destroy that effigy. to magically curse the person or

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Speaker 2: the parties. And then finally, you would have these religious

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Speaker 2: or cosmic curses. This is very interesting because, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: in the more modern religious context, we often think about

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Speaker 2: what happens with supernatural entities. That's sort of beyond our intervention.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're subject to them. They're not subject to us.

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Speaker 2: But this, in fact, like we talked about last time,

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Speaker 2: was kind of like a curse the devil phenomenon. Like

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Speaker 2: in the Egyptian context, Cosmic curses were designed to sustain

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Speaker 2: the balance of order in the world and to magically

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Speaker 2: help the gods of order defeat the bad gods, you know,

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Speaker 2: the forces of chaos like the serpent, Apep, or Apophis.

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Speaker 2: And so we're back today to discuss more. Now, Rob,

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Speaker 2: let's see, we've got a couple of things we want

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Speaker 2: to get into today. We do want to talk in

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Speaker 2: some more specifics about famous tomb curses or alleged tomb curses.

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Speaker 2: But before we do that, do you want to talk

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Speaker 2: about this idea of threats to the reader?

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Speaker 1: Yes. You were talking a little bit about this the

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Speaker 1: other day, and of course it instantly brought to mind

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Speaker 1: things like the ring. Yes. It's like, watch this video

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Speaker 1: and you're cursed. Or you watch the video. There's no

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Speaker 1: way to undo it. Yes. I'm excited to hear more.

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Speaker 2: So when you think about a magical text that inflicts

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Speaker 2: a curse, you usually think about a named or specified target, right?

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Speaker 2: For example, these personal curses. That would often be directed

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Speaker 2: toward a specific person, enemy, rival, oppressor. Then you also

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Speaker 2: have the cosmic, the religious curses we talked about that

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Speaker 2: were usually targeted at a named chaotic deity. Again, most

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Speaker 2: often the serpent Apep or Apophis. And then you have

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Speaker 2: these political curses that would certainly have named enemies. In fact,

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Speaker 2: sometimes the naming of enemies in the political curses, that's

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Speaker 2: like the majority of the text we have. And that

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Speaker 2: kind of makes sense when you imagine what the rituals were, right?

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Speaker 2: Like you'd write the names on things and then destroy

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Speaker 2: those things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And also to come back to something we

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Speaker 1: talked about with tomb facilities in particular, there was often

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Speaker 1: a duality to the statement. It would only be like 50% curse.

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Speaker 1: It would be like blessings upon you if you were here,

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Speaker 1: you know, with good intentions, but curses upon you if

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Speaker 1: you were here with bad intentions.

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Speaker 2: I want to get back to that in a minute

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Speaker 2: because there are interesting parallel dualities also. But coming back

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Speaker 2: to the idea of political curses just briefly, because I

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Speaker 2: am thinking about these named versus unnamed targets of curses.

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Speaker 2: I found one pretty extensive translation of a particular political

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Speaker 2: curse and execration liturgy. from the Middle Kingdom, and this

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Speaker 2: was translated by the American Egyptologist John A. Wilson, who

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Speaker 2: was a professor at the University of Chicago. He lived

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Speaker 2: 1899 to 1976. So these texts originally come from materials

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Speaker 2: that were held by the Berlin Museum. The translation appears

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Speaker 2: in a book called The Ancient Near East, an anthology

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Speaker 2: of texts and pictures edited by Pritchard, Princeton University Press,

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Speaker 2: originally published in 1958. So the text collection is called

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Speaker 2: The Execration of Asiatic Princes. And in this case, that

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Speaker 2: would refer to the rulers east of Egypt, primarily rulers

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Speaker 2: and peoples in the Levant. So again, the way these

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Speaker 2: execration rituals worked is that the names of the political

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Speaker 2: enemies of Egypt and the enemies of the king were

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Speaker 2: You'd like inscribe them on a piece of pottery and

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Speaker 2: then the pottery would be smashed. And then there were

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Speaker 2: other ways of destroying effigies too, but that seems to

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Speaker 2: be the main thing we're talking about here. Smashing of

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Speaker 2: these clay vessels. Because the names had magical connections to

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Speaker 2: their owners, this smashing along with the ritual language was

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Speaker 2: thought to weaken and harm these enemy leaders. And so

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Speaker 2: the fragments name the rulers, but they don't just name

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Speaker 2: the rulers. They're like, here's the ruler. Here's where they're from.

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Speaker 2: And then also make sure to get all their servants

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Speaker 2: and all their warriors. So, you know, one example is

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Speaker 2: the ruler of Enoch, Erum, and all the retainers who

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Speaker 2: are with him. The ruler of Enoch, Ahiyamimu, and all

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Speaker 2: the retainers who are with him. The ruler of Enoch, Akirum,

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Speaker 2: and all the retainers who are with him. The ruler

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Speaker 2: of Shutu, and it goes on like this, and all

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Speaker 2: the retainers and all the warriors and all his strong

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Speaker 2: men who fight. Um, and so, uh, there are many

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Speaker 2: examples in this, this text in the book here that

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Speaker 2: are just naming princes, all their retainers, all the people

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Speaker 2: who would serve them. And then of course they would

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Speaker 2: smash that to, to destroy and weaken those people. But, uh,

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Speaker 2: in addition, the political execration also extends to what feels

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Speaker 2: like a more prophylactic format when it starts cursing potential

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Speaker 2: internal enemies from Egypt, uh, because there are, uh, Fragments

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Speaker 2: that specify all men, all people, all folk, all males,

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Speaker 2: all eunuchs, all women, all officials who may rebel, who

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Speaker 2: may plot, who may fight, who may talk of fighting,

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Speaker 2: who may talk of rebelling. And every rebel who talks

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Speaker 2: of rebelling in this entire land.

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Speaker 1: But this seems like they've got everybody. I don't see

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Speaker 1: too many categories that were left out there.

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Speaker 2: But it's funny that, yeah, you would think not, but

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Speaker 2: there's some general cleanup after this. They also just say

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Speaker 2: every evil word, every evil speech, every evil slander, every

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Speaker 2: evil thought, every evil plot, every evil fight, every evil quarrel,

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Speaker 2: every evil plan, every evil thing, all evil dreams and

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Speaker 2: all evil slumber.

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Speaker 1: Evil dreams. I can't help those. Come on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. But then

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Speaker 2: also there are some more texts that do name specific

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Speaker 2: traitors and enemies within Egypt as well. Like there's this

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Speaker 2: one fragment that goes, and then just keeps naming people

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Speaker 2: like that, often like the tutors of women within the

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Speaker 2: royal family. There's a footnote that says we don't know

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Speaker 2: exactly what this is about, but it seems like it

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Speaker 2: could be attacking traitors who were thought to be part

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Speaker 2: of a harem conspiracy. So once again, here we get

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Speaker 2: the specific targets of the curse. But of course, not

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Speaker 2: all curses that appear in Egyptian texts are targeted at

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Speaker 2: named enemies. Some are more like a general security system

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Speaker 2: that apply to whom it may concern. And a big

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Speaker 2: example here that we've already talked about is tomb curses.

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Speaker 2: Often of the format, just generally, I'm not quoting here,

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Speaker 2: anyone who enters this tomb with ill intent or who

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Speaker 2: steals from or defaces this tomb will face penalties. A

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Speaker 2: common one is, I will be judged with him, meaning,

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Speaker 2: in your paraphrase from last time, Rob, I'll see you

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Speaker 2: in ghost court. Yeah. And then often having a more

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Speaker 2: violent or specific threat as well, like I shall wring

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Speaker 2: his neck like a goose.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which, as we discussed last time, may tie into

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Speaker 1: like the sacrificial killing birds in temples. So, again, that

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Speaker 1: kind of blurring of the line that modern individuals might

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Speaker 1: think would exist between like the wizard and the priest.

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Speaker 2: There's one text I just found in an older book

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Speaker 2: I found on the Gutenberg Project that was a collection

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Speaker 2: of translated tomb inscriptions. This one was from a tomb that,

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Speaker 2: in this it's translated Ankweja Ichi. And it says, it

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Speaker 2: goes as follows. The scribe in the presence, Ichi, speaks.

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Speaker 2: With regard to any person who shall take stones from

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Speaker 2: this tomb of mine, of the necropolis, I shall be

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Speaker 2: judged with them on this matter by the God. Okay,

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Speaker 2: there you go. We see you in ghost court. And

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Speaker 2: then for I am an excellent ox who knows his spells.

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Speaker 2: So that's again, like I've got the best lawyers basically.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And again, I think in many cases, the God

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Speaker 1: is going to be Osiris or it could be a

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Speaker 1: regional deity.

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Speaker 2: A lot of these tombs that do make a threat,

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Speaker 2: they invoke the power of Osiris.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, so on the subject of curses that function

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Speaker 2: less like a targeted attack and more like a general

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Speaker 2: purpose security system and have this to whom it may

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Speaker 2: concern energy, I wanted to talk about an interesting curse

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Speaker 2: format that I first came across in an academic conference

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Speaker 2: presentation by the American Egyptologist Robert K. Rittner, who lived

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Speaker 2: 1953 to 2021. The presentation is from 2003, and it

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Speaker 2: is called an eternal curse upon the reader of these lines.

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Speaker 2: So as you can guess from the title, this is

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Speaker 2: an Egyptian curse phenomenon that feels like it'd be very

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Speaker 2: at home in a horror movie. It is a text

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Speaker 2: that curses the reader for the crime of reading it.

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Speaker 2: Or in Rittner's words, quote, an invocation for divine wrath

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Speaker 2: directed not against its primary victims who are later damned

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Speaker 2: by name, but against the accidental discoverer. That's cold.

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Speaker 1: And I'm assuming this would be in like the foreword

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Speaker 1: of said text and not like the epilogue.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because I have one full text that

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Speaker 2: I could read in a minute where it happens at

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Speaker 2: the very end. What? It's like, by the way, if

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Speaker 2: you read this, you also are cursed.

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Speaker 1: Oh, man.

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Speaker 2: Now, before I get to that, I do briefly want

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Speaker 2: to mention that the existence of this type of curse is.

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Speaker 2: is not the main point of Rittner's presentation, which itself

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Speaker 2: is pretty interesting, though a lot of it is like

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Speaker 2: linguistic stuff that was over my head. But it is

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Speaker 2: an interesting thing to read. So Rittner is more focused

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Speaker 2: on a few things. One is how, this sort of

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Speaker 2: relates to stuff we talked about in part one, how

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Speaker 2: the distinction between divine and demonic power in ancient Egyptian

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Speaker 2: religious thought is not all that distinct. And the categories

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Speaker 2: often overlap with the same deities or entities often being

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Speaker 2: invoked as protectors and healers or as supernatural knife bearers

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Speaker 2: and slaughtering demons. A major part of the presentation is

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Speaker 2: this linguistic argument that again was over my head, but

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Speaker 2: it was focused on the definition of a particular Egyptian word,

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Speaker 2: which appears in a lot of legal, medical and magical texts,

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Speaker 2: some religious texts. Basically here, which Rittner argues should be

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Speaker 2: understood as a kind of divine compulsion. This word he's

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Speaker 2: arguing means a kind of seizing by a god or

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Speaker 2: divine power and compelling action in a way. And this

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Speaker 2: could be good or evil, helpful or harmful, but the

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Speaker 2: force by which a god or demon seizes a human

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Speaker 2: and forces them to act one way or another... This

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Speaker 2: term often appears in what we think of as tomb curses.

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Speaker 2: So again, for example, the compulsion of Osiris be on

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Speaker 2: him who reads these words, his life will be shortened.

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Speaker 2: That sounds like standard curse stuff. You know, you are compulsion,

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Speaker 2: you're seized by compulsion of a God and here's your punishment.

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Speaker 2: But it is not only used with the meaning that

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Speaker 2: the intruder will be, you know, seized by supernatural compulsion

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Speaker 2: to prevent them from harming the tomb. There are also

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Speaker 2: positive invocations of this divine compulsion to, for example, say

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Speaker 2: that the reader of an inscription or the person entering

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Speaker 2: a tomb will be compelled by divine force to do

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Speaker 2: something to honor the dead, like make an offering of

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Speaker 2: water or to do something else on the tomb owner's behalf.

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Speaker 2: So I found that pretty interesting. You would have these

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Speaker 2: tomb inscriptions that say like, okay, Osiris has seized you.

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Speaker 2: You know, the God compels you now. Um, it could

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Speaker 2: be like, get out of here or you will be killed.

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Speaker 2: It could also be, you will make an offering to the,

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Speaker 2: you know, the soul of the person buried here.

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Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That is fascinating. Uh, I'm sure, uh, Julian Jane's, uh,

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Speaker 1: devotees have some fun with that one. Uh, but, uh,

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Speaker 1: But in general, I just I like the idea that

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Speaker 1: it's like it's the positive side of that. It's like

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Speaker 1: Osiris compels you here. You need to do the right

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Speaker 1: thing in here.

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Speaker 2: But coming to the reader directed curse, one of the

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Speaker 2: most striking examples mentioned in Rittner's introduction, I think, is

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Speaker 2: actually doubly striking, not only because it has this dynamic

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Speaker 2: where it curses the reader for reading, but because though

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Speaker 2: it is ancient Egyptians. It comes from very late, from

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Speaker 2: the Coptic Christian Egyptian period. And so it seems to

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Speaker 2: be basically a form of Christian in its theology. So

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Speaker 2: it is a targeted personal curse invoking divine violence from

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Speaker 2: the Christian God. Fascinating. So the one I wanted to

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Speaker 2: mention is a Coptic Egyptian curse known as Papyrus Lichachev.

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Speaker 2: I think I'm saying that right. This is from the

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Speaker 2: 4th or 5th century. I went and dug up the

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Speaker 2: full text as translated by a scholar named Marvin Meyer

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Speaker 2: from a book called Ancient Christian Magic. Coptic texts of

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Speaker 2: ritual power. This is text number 90 in this book,

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Speaker 2: and it's called Curse Against Several Violent People. Meyer summarizes

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Speaker 2: it by saying, quote, in this papyrus, a victim similarly

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Speaker 2: calls upon God in the language of the courtroom to

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Speaker 2: bring judgment against several people who have committed an act

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Speaker 2: of violence. The closing lines pronounce a curse upon anyone

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Speaker 2: who opens and reads the papyrus. So I'll give you

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Speaker 2: a few selections from the text. Lord my God, to

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Speaker 2: whom I look, who is seated upon the chariot of

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Speaker 2: the cherubim, with the seraphim round about you, who is

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Speaker 2: mounted upon the four creatures, Michael, Gabriel the archangel, cherubim

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Speaker 2: and seraphim, Rabuel, Suruel, Kukuel, you who are seated upon

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Speaker 2: your throne and with your beloved son, along with all

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Speaker 2: those who have been named, and the place where this

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Speaker 2: will be deposited, and the angel of the church, you

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Speaker 2: must strike Protasia and Tenunte and Ebenei, quickly, deservedly. You

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Speaker 2: must hinder them as they have hindered him. You must

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Speaker 2: bring upon them the anger of your wrath and your

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Speaker 2: raised arm. As you cursed Samora and Kimora through the

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Speaker 2: anger of your wrath, you must curse the one who

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Speaker 2: has committed this act of violence. You must bring the

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Speaker 2: vengeance of Enoch against them, as the blood of Abel

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Speaker 2: called out to Cain his brother. The blood of this

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Speaker 2: miserable man will call out, until you bring judgment on

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Speaker 2: his behalf against those who have committed this act of

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Speaker 2: violence against him. Elohe, Elohe, that is, Lord Sabaoth, you

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Speaker 2: must bring your wrath upon them in a disturbing way.

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Speaker 2: You in whose hands is every breath who formed the world,

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Speaker 2: you must quickly overthrow the people who have committed this violence. Yea,

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Speaker 2: Lord Sabaoth, you must bring judgment on his behalf quickly.

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Speaker 2: And then in the verso, it has finally, whoever opens

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Speaker 2: this papyrus and reads it, what is written on it

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Speaker 2: will come upon him by the order of the Lord God. What?

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Speaker 1: Of note, you did not open the papyrus. You merely

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Speaker 1: read a translation. So I think legally you're in the

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Speaker 1: clear here, but I am no ancient Egyptian priest or

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Speaker 1: wizard or Coptic priest or wizard.

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Speaker 2: I mean, so interesting. I wish I knew more about

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Speaker 2: the exact flavor of early Christianity that this is working from.

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Speaker 2: I don't know actually for sure, but this sounds to

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Speaker 2: me like it could be Gnostic influenced. I don't want

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Speaker 2: to say that I know that because I didn't have

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Speaker 2: time to look into that, but I would love to

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Speaker 2: go back and dig into that and figure out exactly

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Speaker 2: what the underlying theology here is thought to be, though

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Speaker 2: it is clearly some kind of strongly Christian influenced theology.

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Speaker 2: But it's the kind of Christianity where the person thinks

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Speaker 2: that they can just say, God, somebody did something bad

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Speaker 2: to me, and God, I want you to go raise

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Speaker 2: your arm to them, destroy them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really fascinating. I wish I'd known about

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Speaker 1: this in high school when I went through a phase

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Speaker 1: where I was super into angels and reading about the

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Speaker 1: different angel names and all, because this is loaded with

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And then it's interesting to think

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Speaker 1: about this in terms of stuff we've already talked about

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Speaker 1: as sort of a A legalistic argument because you can

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Speaker 1: get us. They're not directly invoking Mott here, but there's

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Speaker 1: a there's still a sense of it. They're sort of like, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm pointing to legal precedents to why you should

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Speaker 1: act in rap against this individual or individuals, you know.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's not directly saying this is necessary for

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Speaker 1: balance and it goes beyond you, but it's pointing at

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Speaker 1: legal precedents. And it is also kind of interesting to

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Speaker 1: think about it in terms of how this is just

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Speaker 1: like buttering up a terrestrial ruler, you know, a powerful

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Speaker 1: king and saying, hey, you're pretty great. Look at all

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Speaker 1: your power. A powerful ruler like yourself should definitely act

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Speaker 1: in this case and do so in accordance with these

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Speaker 1: legal precedents.

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Speaker 2: That's a really great point. Yes. It is bringing up

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Speaker 2: case law and that way it does feel like it's

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Speaker 2: very much in the Egyptian magical curse tradition, even though

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Speaker 2: it is not with traditional Egyptian deities, but with Christian. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 2: but it still has that, that Egyptian format, you know,

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Speaker 2: going back thousands of years. Um, it, it, it like, uh,

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Speaker 2: the way it refers to other times, God has cursed

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Speaker 2: people for doing bad things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It's like, remember when you did this, it's like that time.

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Speaker 1: I wonder, though, thinking about Maat again, and I would

429
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,780
Speaker 1: have to research deeper on this, but I wonder if

430
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,120
Speaker 1: the Christian God that is being invoked here, is there

431
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: a sense that this deity is at least to some

432
00:24:57,619 --> 00:25:01,360
Speaker 1: degree detached from Maat? Is this a move away from

433
00:25:01,460 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 1: Maat as an essential religious and cultural concept? I don't

434
00:25:07,900 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 1: have an answer to that, but I can't help but

435
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:12,160
Speaker 1: wonder about it as we look at this text.

436
00:25:13,020 --> 00:25:16,140
Speaker 2: So obviously this particular text is different from a lot

437
00:25:16,180 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 2: of the things we've been talking about for numerous reasons,

438
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:20,979
Speaker 2: one of the big ones being that it's in this

439
00:25:21,020 --> 00:25:24,700
Speaker 2: Christian context. But you could look at these earlier texts

440
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:30,300
Speaker 2: as well and ask the general question, why curse the

441
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 2: reader for reading? What is the point of doing that?

442
00:25:33,420 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 2: The reader is not the person you're mad at when

443
00:25:36,420 --> 00:25:38,649
Speaker 2: you're writing out this curse, so why just include a

444
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:40,610
Speaker 2: line that's like, By the way, if you read this,

445
00:25:41,070 --> 00:25:44,949
Speaker 2: everything I said applies to you as well. In the tomb,

446
00:25:45,250 --> 00:25:49,100
Speaker 2: cursing the reader kind of makes sense because it's not

447
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 2: so much about the reading. I mean, what's really being

448
00:25:51,940 --> 00:25:56,180
Speaker 2: protected is the tomb. It's just logical that if you're

449
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,100
Speaker 2: reading this in this place, you're probably doing something I

450
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,369
Speaker 2: don't want you to, or you might be ready about

451
00:26:02,430 --> 00:26:04,830
Speaker 2: to do something I don't want you to. So therefore,

452
00:26:04,850 --> 00:26:07,310
Speaker 2: it stands to reason that if you're reading this, a

453
00:26:07,410 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 2: threat should be applied to you. But does that really

454
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 2: make sense with, you know, magical papyri, a spell written

455
00:26:14,540 --> 00:26:17,820
Speaker 2: on papyrus? Like, why would you put a curse on

456
00:26:17,859 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 2: just a text? I think we don't actually know for sure,

457
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,050
Speaker 2: but there are some ideas. So I think one idea

458
00:26:25,210 --> 00:26:30,470
Speaker 2: is it may serve to protect the effectiveness of the curse,

459
00:26:30,730 --> 00:26:36,650
Speaker 2: perhaps by protecting the curse's ritual purity. You know, so like,

460
00:26:37,700 --> 00:26:41,090
Speaker 2: the curse is something that is between the person issuing

461
00:26:41,130 --> 00:26:45,129
Speaker 2: the curse and the deity that's being invoked. And if

462
00:26:45,150 --> 00:26:48,409
Speaker 2: you're just getting other random parties involved, you know, random

463
00:26:48,430 --> 00:26:50,709
Speaker 2: people coming in and reading this who aren't supposed to be,

464
00:26:50,750 --> 00:26:55,020
Speaker 2: they might kind of be interrupting that relationship, just bungling.

465
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, the purity of the signal or something, you know?

466
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:03,140
Speaker 2: Yeah, or also preventing the bungling interference from readers who

467
00:27:03,180 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 2: don't know what they're doing and might be using the

468
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 2: power of the curse in some way for themselves, because

469
00:27:09,220 --> 00:27:11,820
Speaker 2: a common strain of thought in ancient Egypt is that

470
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:17,869
Speaker 2: words themselves have magic power. Writing kind of has a

471
00:27:17,930 --> 00:27:21,669
Speaker 2: hecka of its own. And so the act of writing

472
00:27:21,730 --> 00:27:24,429
Speaker 2: something has magic power, and the act of reading something

473
00:27:24,670 --> 00:27:27,130
Speaker 2: has magic power. This is something Rittner actually does talk

474
00:27:27,170 --> 00:27:33,469
Speaker 2: about more in the context of his writing. the compulsion,

475
00:27:33,530 --> 00:27:35,850
Speaker 2: which can work either way, which can compel you to

476
00:27:35,910 --> 00:27:39,110
Speaker 2: do things. I think his idea is that the act

477
00:27:39,190 --> 00:27:43,820
Speaker 2: of reading turns on the divine compulsion feature. It can

478
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 2: activate the magic power of the words therein. And so

479
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 2: both writing and reading sort of like turn the machine on,

480
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:53,440
Speaker 2: if that makes sense.

481
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:55,540
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it more than makes sense.

482
00:27:55,580 --> 00:27:57,179
Speaker 1: I think most of us can relate to it on

483
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,129
Speaker 1: some level or another, just in terms of daily reading

484
00:28:00,170 --> 00:28:02,530
Speaker 1: and writing. But And I was just just the other

485
00:28:02,570 --> 00:28:07,990
Speaker 1: day I was looking at yet another anxiety tweaking exercise

486
00:28:08,050 --> 00:28:14,110
Speaker 1: that involves writing, that involves like writing out particular thoughts,

487
00:28:14,210 --> 00:28:18,130
Speaker 1: particular triggers and so forth. And, you know, in doing so,

488
00:28:18,230 --> 00:28:21,889
Speaker 1: gaining distance from them, sort of being able to manipulate

489
00:28:21,950 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: their power. And there are any number of examples like

490
00:28:25,380 --> 00:28:29,660
Speaker 1: that inside and outside of therapy that can that basically

491
00:28:29,780 --> 00:28:34,940
Speaker 1: utilize the power of human language. I mean, talking about

492
00:28:35,020 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: magic again, I've heard it put before that magic is

493
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:43,460
Speaker 1: making the world conform to language, you know? And to

494
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,100
Speaker 1: a certain extent, you don't have to believe in magic

495
00:28:46,140 --> 00:28:47,020
Speaker 1: to see that happen.

496
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:50,870
Speaker 2: I think that's an excellent point, yeah. So a big

497
00:28:51,090 --> 00:28:54,470
Speaker 2: idea is that cursing the reader could be about protecting

498
00:28:54,510 --> 00:28:57,970
Speaker 2: the effectiveness, the efficacy of the spell, But another thing

499
00:28:58,010 --> 00:29:00,370
Speaker 2: might just be about secrecy. And you can think about

500
00:29:00,410 --> 00:29:04,170
Speaker 2: secrecy from multiple directions. I mean, you might be thinking

501
00:29:04,210 --> 00:29:08,530
Speaker 2: about the personal privacy concerns or the secrecy of the

502
00:29:08,570 --> 00:29:12,420
Speaker 2: person invoking the curse. Maybe in some kind of papyri,

503
00:29:12,460 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 2: you wouldn't really want your neighbors to know exactly what

504
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,860
Speaker 2: you're doing. I don't know. That's a possibility, I think.

505
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: But another way of thinking about secrecy is more about

506
00:29:22,350 --> 00:29:26,530
Speaker 2: It's sort of like locking up the weapons. You know,

507
00:29:26,590 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 2: there's a secrecy element because a curse, the language of

508
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,870
Speaker 2: a curse is a memetic weapon. It's like information that

509
00:29:35,990 --> 00:29:37,910
Speaker 2: can be used to harm just in the way you

510
00:29:37,930 --> 00:29:40,570
Speaker 2: were talking about. The words have magical power. to harm

511
00:29:40,590 --> 00:29:45,690
Speaker 2: uh by placing a seal on a papyrus that has

512
00:29:45,770 --> 00:29:49,910
Speaker 2: the power to curse you are essentially practicing proper security

513
00:29:49,970 --> 00:29:53,090
Speaker 2: with something that is inherently dangerous.

514
00:29:53,980 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: Yeah and i wonder too like this and we're talking

515
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: about this as outsiders who are like, whoa, this papyrus

516
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,700
Speaker 1: was cursed. But I'm wondering, too, if this would have

517
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: been just a known fact about it. Like, oh, that

518
00:30:06,860 --> 00:30:10,940
Speaker 1: is a cursed scroll. You know not to read that

519
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: because if you're not the intended user, there could be

520
00:30:14,790 --> 00:30:16,090
Speaker 1: harmful ramifications.

521
00:30:16,380 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, this

522
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,190
Speaker 2: is something I think that often gets lost about ancient

523
00:30:21,250 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 2: texts because they come to us as text. We read

524
00:30:26,220 --> 00:30:29,380
Speaker 2: a translation of a text in a book, and so

525
00:30:29,420 --> 00:30:33,750
Speaker 2: it's just the information component, the text taken out of

526
00:30:33,790 --> 00:30:37,910
Speaker 2: its context. But the context is a physical surrounding, the

527
00:30:37,950 --> 00:30:41,130
Speaker 2: substrate that it's printed on, what it looks like, what

528
00:30:41,210 --> 00:30:44,210
Speaker 2: kind of object it was, where it was, and things

529
00:30:44,250 --> 00:30:47,710
Speaker 2: like that, that all also contain information, just in the

530
00:30:47,730 --> 00:30:49,870
Speaker 2: way you think about anything that's written in your world

531
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 2: you know, a street sign has a different way you

532
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,660
Speaker 2: understand it than a page in a book. And a

533
00:30:57,060 --> 00:30:59,450
Speaker 2: page in a book can mean something very different if

534
00:30:59,490 --> 00:31:03,050
Speaker 2: it's like an instruction manual versus a novel or, you know,

535
00:31:03,410 --> 00:31:06,990
Speaker 2: and so, so many things that are not stated within

536
00:31:07,050 --> 00:31:10,370
Speaker 2: the text itself inform how we understand a text. And

537
00:31:10,390 --> 00:31:13,290
Speaker 2: a lot of times that is just totally lost when you,

538
00:31:13,510 --> 00:31:16,209
Speaker 2: you know, when it's taken out of its original cultural

539
00:31:16,260 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 2: context and just presented as a translation in a book.

540
00:31:19,780 --> 00:31:24,210
Speaker 1: Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, this is fascinating. It reminds me, many

541
00:31:24,260 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: years ago, I was inadvertently sent an email through work.

542
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,060
Speaker 1: And then after I received it, someone reached out and

543
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,870
Speaker 1: was like, hey, you weren't supposed to get that. There's

544
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,250
Speaker 1: an attachment in that email. Don't open it. Just delete

545
00:31:38,290 --> 00:31:42,990
Speaker 1: it unseen. So similar vibe. They didn't threaten to curse me,

546
00:31:43,070 --> 00:31:45,430
Speaker 1: but I was like, all right, all right. I'm sure

547
00:31:45,450 --> 00:31:47,910
Speaker 1: I don't really want to look it up. you know,

548
00:31:47,950 --> 00:31:51,510
Speaker 1: a spreadsheet of numbers I don't understand. So I'm perfectly fine,

549
00:31:51,570 --> 00:31:54,020
Speaker 1: perfectly happy to do that. And then I guess in

550
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: another sense, we receive emails all the time that we

551
00:31:56,700 --> 00:32:00,020
Speaker 1: know are cursed, that have cursed attachments, and we have

552
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: to dismiss them out of hand.

553
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,540
Speaker 2: Yeah. Talk about information threat.

554
00:32:03,660 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right.

555
00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 2: Well, that's all I've got for now on reader curses.

556
00:32:17,180 --> 00:32:19,220
Speaker 2: But Rob, I know you wanted to talk about the

557
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,260
Speaker 2: so-called curse of the pharaohs. What have you got on that?

558
00:32:22,780 --> 00:32:25,380
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is inevitably the place

559
00:32:25,780 --> 00:32:29,910
Speaker 1: to take this because we have this, we have to

560
00:32:29,930 --> 00:32:33,970
Speaker 1: stress this, a very 20th century conception of a pharaoh's

561
00:32:34,050 --> 00:32:39,469
Speaker 1: curse that still remains pretty pervasive in the public mindset.

562
00:32:40,910 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: And it emerges of, pretty much entirely in the wake

563
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: of the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley

564
00:32:50,500 --> 00:32:54,010
Speaker 1: of the Kings by archaeologist Howard Carter, who lived 1874

565
00:32:54,010 --> 00:33:01,030
Speaker 1: through 1939, and his financier, Lord Carnarvon. This was also

566
00:33:01,070 --> 00:33:04,250
Speaker 1: known as George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. He

567
00:33:04,290 --> 00:33:05,170
Speaker 1: lived 1866 through 1923, of note 23, that's one year

568
00:33:05,290 --> 00:33:12,550
Speaker 1: after the discovery of of the tomb, we'll come back

569
00:33:12,590 --> 00:33:12,910
Speaker 1: to that.

570
00:33:13,130 --> 00:33:15,990
Speaker 2: Oh, obviously the tomb got him. That's just logic.

571
00:33:16,750 --> 00:33:20,610
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where it's going. So to refresh, Tutankhamen reigned

572
00:33:20,690 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: from roughly 1334 through 1325 BCE. He only lived to

573
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: the age of 18 or 19, though became pharaoh at

574
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: age eight or nine. So sometimes looking at his age,

575
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,750
Speaker 1: you can think, well, he must have been a very

576
00:33:38,810 --> 00:33:41,910
Speaker 1: short reign, couldn't have done much. But, you know, when

577
00:33:41,930 --> 00:33:45,750
Speaker 1: you consider that he became pharaoh at age eight or nine,

578
00:33:46,430 --> 00:33:49,030
Speaker 1: you know, it's a lengthy enough reign to do a

579
00:33:49,070 --> 00:33:52,229
Speaker 1: lot of things. Still, there does seem to be the

580
00:33:52,380 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: indication that his death, you know, he died very young

581
00:33:55,560 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: and it was to some degree unexpected. So this would

582
00:34:00,020 --> 00:34:02,940
Speaker 1: have been towards the end of the New Kingdom's 18th dynasty.

583
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: And one thing to remember about King Tut's tomb is

584
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:11,390
Speaker 1: that it did not lay completely undisturbed for the entirety

585
00:34:11,550 --> 00:34:14,800
Speaker 1: of its history. It was robbed twice within just a

586
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,300
Speaker 1: few years of Tut's burial. Repairs and restocking took place.

587
00:34:20,020 --> 00:34:22,940
Speaker 1: But for one or two possible reasons, the entrance to

588
00:34:22,980 --> 00:34:26,020
Speaker 1: King Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings became obscured,

589
00:34:26,580 --> 00:34:30,420
Speaker 1: possibly due to silty deposits brought on by flooding. Not

590
00:34:30,460 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: everyone agrees on this count. And due to subsequent tomb construction.

591
00:34:35,020 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: This one is more definite. This means mounds of debris,

592
00:34:38,739 --> 00:34:41,900
Speaker 1: workmen's huts being built in the Valley of the Kings

593
00:34:42,180 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: to facilitate other tomb facilities, and it just becomes lost.

594
00:34:46,739 --> 00:34:51,060
Speaker 2: Right. So King Tut's tomb was not completely undisturbed, but

595
00:34:51,219 --> 00:34:56,010
Speaker 2: it was less disturbed than most other tombs from ancient Egypt.

596
00:34:56,130 --> 00:34:58,210
Speaker 1: Yeah. And for a considerable amount of time.

597
00:34:58,469 --> 00:34:59,969
Speaker 2: Yeah.

598
00:35:00,030 --> 00:35:02,029
Speaker 1: And this is during a time when tomb raiders are

599
00:35:02,330 --> 00:35:05,469
Speaker 1: just going to continue to plague the Valley of the Kings, um,

600
00:35:06,300 --> 00:35:08,259
Speaker 1: it's my understanding that like the Valley of the Kings

601
00:35:08,300 --> 00:35:10,660
Speaker 1: was established as a way to better protect the tombs,

602
00:35:10,780 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: but how are you going to provide protection, uh, you know,

603
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:18,110
Speaker 1: across millennia? Uh, yeah, it becomes difficult. Um, but the

604
00:35:18,130 --> 00:35:22,110
Speaker 1: tomb of Tutankhamun in itself, smaller and less extensively decorated

605
00:35:22,150 --> 00:35:25,270
Speaker 1: than other Egyptian Royal tombs of its time, uh, likely

606
00:35:25,330 --> 00:35:28,509
Speaker 1: adapted from a non-Royal tomb. So as to provide space

607
00:35:28,570 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: for Tut in the aftermath of his sudden death, uh,

608
00:35:32,050 --> 00:35:34,530
Speaker 1: It ends up, again, being remained, it ends up remaining

609
00:35:34,630 --> 00:35:38,130
Speaker 1: undisturbed for thousands of years. And then during the boom

610
00:35:38,150 --> 00:35:41,860
Speaker 1: of 19th and 20th century Egyptology, the Valley of the

611
00:35:41,890 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: Kings receives a great deal of renewed scrutiny from Europeans

612
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: and objects related to Tut were discovered in the area.

613
00:35:50,300 --> 00:35:53,220
Speaker 1: And this eventually led to the rediscovery of the tomb itself,

614
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:57,950
Speaker 1: the contents of which exceeded all expectations. It took multiple

615
00:35:57,989 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: seasons to remove all the materials inside. And it is

616
00:36:00,780 --> 00:36:05,130
Speaker 1: largely considered the most important archaeological find of the 20th century.

617
00:36:05,670 --> 00:36:09,310
Speaker 1: It's the only nearly intact royal burial site ever found

618
00:36:09,350 --> 00:36:12,670
Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt. And it provided both a time capsule

619
00:36:12,710 --> 00:36:15,130
Speaker 1: of the new kingdom and a glimpse into the daily

620
00:36:15,210 --> 00:36:19,009
Speaker 1: life of many ancient Egyptians. So it's kind of hard

621
00:36:19,050 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: to overstate the importance of King Tut's tomb, which at

622
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,980
Speaker 1: times it can almost be counterintuitive because such a big

623
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: deal was made out of it. You know, it was

624
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,569
Speaker 1: huge news. And a big deal continues to be made

625
00:36:31,650 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 1: out of it. You know, the materials from this discovery

626
00:36:36,380 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: still tour around the world. You know, King Tut inspires

627
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:45,830
Speaker 1: his own brand of Egyptomania. So, but we have to

628
00:36:45,870 --> 00:36:48,009
Speaker 1: remind ourselves, like, yeah, this was a huge deal. And

629
00:36:48,050 --> 00:36:50,069
Speaker 1: we learned and are still continuing to learn so much

630
00:36:50,150 --> 00:36:53,490
Speaker 1: from it. And at the time, too, it was huge.

631
00:36:53,610 --> 00:36:57,490
Speaker 1: The discovery made international news. It was a bona fide

632
00:36:57,650 --> 00:37:03,109
Speaker 1: international sensation. We've discussed Egyptomania on the show before. There

633
00:37:03,140 --> 00:37:07,580
Speaker 1: have been multiple waves of Egyptomania throughout history. Fascination with

634
00:37:09,340 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: the look of Egyptian artifacts, the mysteries about how these

635
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:16,779
Speaker 1: people lived and so forth. And it goes back at

636
00:37:16,820 --> 00:37:19,280
Speaker 1: least as far as the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews.

637
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: But the discovery of King Tut's tomb kicked off this

638
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,819
Speaker 1: kind of like new wave that is sometimes referred to

639
00:37:26,980 --> 00:37:32,950
Speaker 1: as tutmania. I may accidentally say tutamania, but it is tutmania.

640
00:37:33,010 --> 00:37:37,710
Speaker 1: That's as official as a word like tutmania can be. Okay.

641
00:37:38,430 --> 00:37:41,930
Speaker 1: And a book that I've referred back to before about Egyptomania,

642
00:37:42,780 --> 00:37:46,940
Speaker 1: titled Egyptomania by Ronald H. Fritz, points out that tutamania

643
00:37:47,100 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: didn't just, or tutmania, sorry, didn't just make one splash,

644
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,109
Speaker 1: but continued to resonate with as again, these artifacts from

645
00:37:54,130 --> 00:37:57,450
Speaker 1: the tomb go on various world tours. I mean, I

646
00:37:57,489 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: think a lot of us can think to examples in

647
00:37:59,960 --> 00:38:02,879
Speaker 1: our own life where, oh, the King Tut artifacts came

648
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: to a large city that your family could drive to.

649
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,240
Speaker 1: And yeah, I remember going to it. I remember becoming

650
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,340
Speaker 1: interested in it, buying a soundtrack of Egyptian or supposedly

651
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,569
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian music. And it's probably one of the reasons

652
00:38:18,620 --> 00:38:21,810
Speaker 1: that I'm here on a podcast talking about ancient Egypt today.

653
00:38:22,310 --> 00:38:24,290
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, as with many things in the world, uh,

654
00:38:25,170 --> 00:38:27,530
Speaker 2: how to put this, we should not hold it against

655
00:38:27,670 --> 00:38:31,100
Speaker 2: King Tut or any of his associated artifacts that much

656
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:37,990
Speaker 2: of the reaction or reception of him was cringe. Like

657
00:38:38,180 --> 00:38:41,509
Speaker 2: makes King Tut himself and the artifacts no less interesting.

658
00:38:41,810 --> 00:38:42,149
Speaker 1: Oh yes.

659
00:38:42,210 --> 00:38:42,350
Speaker 2: Yeah.

660
00:38:43,450 --> 00:38:47,310
Speaker 1: So, uh, Of course, again, Egyptomania was already influencing our

661
00:38:47,330 --> 00:38:52,810
Speaker 1: media well before the 1922 Tut find. Again, situating this

662
00:38:52,870 --> 00:39:01,620
Speaker 1: within the 19th and 20th century Egyptomania slash Egyptology boom. So, yeah,

663
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,819
Speaker 1: at this point, we already had what was considered has

664
00:39:04,860 --> 00:39:08,420
Speaker 1: been considered the first mummy film, 1911's The Mummy, in

665
00:39:08,460 --> 00:39:12,609
Speaker 1: which a scientist revives an ancient Egyptian mummy with electricity

666
00:39:12,690 --> 00:39:13,989
Speaker 1: and then falls in love with her.

667
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:15,049
Speaker 2: What?

668
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is sadly a lost film, but seems to

669
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:18,720
Speaker 1: have existed.

670
00:39:19,820 --> 00:39:23,220
Speaker 2: I did not know the first mummy film was basically

671
00:39:23,260 --> 00:39:25,149
Speaker 2: Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein.

672
00:39:25,370 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I mean, clearly influenced by it. uh let's

673
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,800
Speaker 1: see and then we had literary works from the likes

674
00:39:31,900 --> 00:39:35,060
Speaker 1: of sir arthur conan doyle uh he wrote an 1890

675
00:39:35,060 --> 00:39:37,460
Speaker 1: story called the ring of thoth and 1892's lot number

676
00:39:37,460 --> 00:39:44,290
Speaker 1: 249 that one of course was adapted In the motion picture,

677
00:39:44,670 --> 00:39:46,989
Speaker 1: Tales from the Dark Side, the movie. I'm not sure

678
00:39:47,030 --> 00:39:50,190
Speaker 1: how accurately, but it is cited as the reference.

679
00:39:51,410 --> 00:39:53,290
Speaker 2: The one, that's the segment with Christian Slater.

680
00:39:53,790 --> 00:39:56,509
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think Steve Buscemi's in that one as well.

681
00:39:57,130 --> 00:39:58,850
Speaker 1: I need to see it again. I remember liking it

682
00:39:58,890 --> 00:40:01,290
Speaker 1: quite a bit. Oh, yeah. And then also we had

683
00:40:01,310 --> 00:40:06,259
Speaker 1: Bram Stoker, 1903's The Jewel of the Seven Stars. And

684
00:40:06,340 --> 00:40:10,240
Speaker 1: Fritz in his work also singles out the 1827 Jane C.

685
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,380
Speaker 1: Loudon book, The Mummy, that's with an exclamation point and

686
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: then a colon, or a tale of the 22nd century,

687
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: points this out as the earliest long work about a

688
00:40:20,500 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: reanimated mummy. Edgar Allan Poe also wrote an 1845 story

689
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,859
Speaker 1: titled Some Words with a Mummy. I haven't read this

690
00:40:28,969 --> 00:40:29,250
Speaker 1: one either.

691
00:40:29,850 --> 00:40:30,650
Speaker 2: What were the words?

692
00:40:31,469 --> 00:40:33,030
Speaker 1: I mean, some words.

693
00:40:34,850 --> 00:40:35,310
Speaker 2: Let's see.

694
00:40:37,010 --> 00:40:43,230
Speaker 1: But again, 1922's discovery, Tut Mania certainly influenced everything. This

695
00:40:43,330 --> 00:40:46,890
Speaker 1: is one of the prime reasons we ended up with

696
00:40:47,140 --> 00:40:52,860
Speaker 1: the universal horror picture from 1932, The Mummy, absolutely inspired

697
00:40:53,500 --> 00:40:56,800
Speaker 1: by the discovery of King Tut's tomb and an attempt

698
00:40:56,820 --> 00:41:00,590
Speaker 1: to capitalize on it. Really kind of mummy-sploitation, if you will. Yes.

699
00:41:02,150 --> 00:41:03,410
Speaker 2: Like, this is educational.

700
00:41:03,790 --> 00:41:08,630
Speaker 1: Yeah. And of note, we already had ancient Egyptian curse

701
00:41:08,730 --> 00:41:13,049
Speaker 1: fiction before 1922. So one of the best examples that's

702
00:41:13,090 --> 00:41:15,650
Speaker 1: frequently cited is Lost in a Pyramid or The Mummy's

703
00:41:15,730 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: Curse by Louisa May Alcott. This was from 1869. So

704
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: we had these ideas already in our fiction, in our

705
00:41:23,860 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: dream making, due to fascination with actual and interpreted tomb

706
00:41:28,660 --> 00:41:31,980
Speaker 1: curses from ancient Egypt. as well as from other cultures.

707
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,399
Speaker 1: And we've talked about these in the show as well,

708
00:41:33,420 --> 00:41:36,760
Speaker 1: like from Greek culture, from Roman culture, and from various

709
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:37,940
Speaker 1: Mesopotamian cultures.

710
00:41:38,739 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 2: Right. So I think, Rob, would you agree that while

711
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:47,180
Speaker 2: ancient Egyptian tomb curses absolutely were a real phenomenon, and

712
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,500
Speaker 2: there are plenty of examples of this, a lot of

713
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 2: what people think about tomb curses comes from the fiction

714
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 2: that is only loosely inspired by them, not by the

715
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 2: you know, knowledge of what these curses were like themselves.

716
00:42:03,300 --> 00:42:06,580
Speaker 1: Right, right. As well as urban legends. According to Fritz,

717
00:42:06,660 --> 00:42:09,660
Speaker 1: two tales of cursed mummies were popular bits of Victorian

718
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:13,660
Speaker 1: and Edwardian urban legend. Again, tying into, in this case,

719
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,250
Speaker 1: tying into general fascination with occultism and spiritualism that were

720
00:42:17,710 --> 00:42:21,669
Speaker 1: also just a part of the public zeitgeist. But this

721
00:42:21,870 --> 00:42:24,989
Speaker 1: post-Tut idea of the curse of the pharaoh really cooks

722
00:42:25,030 --> 00:42:30,290
Speaker 1: into gear during first wave Tut mania, as, again, expedition

723
00:42:30,370 --> 00:42:34,910
Speaker 1: financier Lord Carnarvon dies a few months after the tomb's

724
00:42:35,070 --> 00:42:38,730
Speaker 1: opening due to, and we're very clear on this, an

725
00:42:38,770 --> 00:42:44,620
Speaker 1: infected mosquito bite. So essentially, Lord Carnarvon here, already in

726
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: not great health, apparently nicked a mosquito bite while shaving,

727
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:55,410
Speaker 1: and this bite-slash-wound became infected He refused to rest, to

728
00:42:55,450 --> 00:42:59,740
Speaker 1: care for himself properly, and subsequently died. According to Fritz,

729
00:42:59,780 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: this also occurred after some ups and downs in the

730
00:43:01,980 --> 00:43:07,939
Speaker 1: following weeks. So not, I mean, sudden in many ways

731
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,779
Speaker 1: of thinking, but maybe not as sudden as invocations of

732
00:43:11,820 --> 00:43:13,229
Speaker 1: a curse might make you think.

733
00:43:13,950 --> 00:43:16,010
Speaker 2: Now, I know a lot of people might be thinking

734
00:43:16,070 --> 00:43:18,890
Speaker 2: the next place this discussion would go would be, was

735
00:43:18,969 --> 00:43:21,989
Speaker 2: it really the curse in King Tut's tomb that got him?

736
00:43:22,370 --> 00:43:25,850
Speaker 2: You know, did that influence the the the infected wound

737
00:43:26,410 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 2: or was it not? But actually, there isn't even a

738
00:43:29,950 --> 00:43:32,700
Speaker 2: curse in King Tut's tomb. Am I correct about that?

739
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:34,540
Speaker 1: That that is correct. Yeah.

740
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,180
Speaker 2: Yeah. So there is no curse to even question here.

741
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,500
Speaker 1: Yeah, there this is a fact. There are no explicit

742
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:47,500
Speaker 1: curse threats of immediate death in or on Tut's tomb whatsoever.

743
00:43:48,010 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: But that didn't stop the media. The media is rather

744
00:43:51,260 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: sensationalist about this. And we're pretty quick to declare that

745
00:43:55,260 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: that he had clearly been struck dead by mysterious forces

746
00:43:58,180 --> 00:44:00,739
Speaker 1: aligned with the curse protection of the tomb. The New

747
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,950
Speaker 1: York Times even reported this is like an actual quote

748
00:44:03,969 --> 00:44:10,710
Speaker 1: from the Times in 23. Carnarvon's death spreads theories about vengeance.

749
00:44:11,730 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that's not. too terrible a journalistic headline.

750
00:44:16,100 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: They're not saying he was definitely cursed. They're saying people

751
00:44:18,219 --> 00:44:18,980
Speaker 1: were talking about it.

752
00:44:19,460 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 2: Fair enough. I guess with stories like that, you know,

753
00:44:21,700 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 2: the people are talking about X stories. The question is

754
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:28,030
Speaker 2: always like, are people really talking about this enough that

755
00:44:28,310 --> 00:44:31,009
Speaker 2: it's worth reporting on? Or is it like this is

756
00:44:31,050 --> 00:44:33,710
Speaker 2: just something that would be interesting to talk about? And

757
00:44:34,130 --> 00:44:36,270
Speaker 2: a few people are saying it. So let's just let's

758
00:44:36,290 --> 00:44:36,969
Speaker 2: just talk about it.

759
00:44:37,170 --> 00:44:40,870
Speaker 1: Yeah, I find it especially maddening these days where this

760
00:44:40,950 --> 00:44:46,180
Speaker 1: form of article might include embedded Twitter tweets or whatever

761
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: they're called these days. Yeah. Are we really tapping into

762
00:44:51,780 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: the public mindset? Maybe we are, but I don't know.

763
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but it seems stupid

764
00:44:56,860 --> 00:44:57,049
Speaker 1: to me.

765
00:44:57,910 --> 00:45:02,149
Speaker 2: I mean, for any ridiculous or horrible idea, you can

766
00:45:02,210 --> 00:45:04,750
Speaker 2: find people saying it. So it's the fact that people

767
00:45:04,790 --> 00:45:07,510
Speaker 2: are saying something worth reporting. I mean, I'm not saying

768
00:45:07,570 --> 00:45:10,270
Speaker 2: it's never worth reporting. If a whole lot of people

769
00:45:10,330 --> 00:45:12,710
Speaker 2: are saying something, I guess it's worth reporting on the

770
00:45:12,790 --> 00:45:16,570
Speaker 2: phenomenon of a rumor because that is news. But I

771
00:45:16,610 --> 00:45:18,379
Speaker 2: don't know. I guess I don't know. Like, what the

772
00:45:18,700 --> 00:45:20,700
Speaker 2: what is the tipping point? Like, what is the critical

773
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:24,420
Speaker 2: threshold of organic conversation about something that it becomes worth

774
00:45:24,500 --> 00:45:25,980
Speaker 2: reporting in a news source?

775
00:45:26,260 --> 00:45:29,060
Speaker 1: Yeah. But at any rate, it was more than just

776
00:45:29,100 --> 00:45:33,210
Speaker 1: the Times talking about it. And in general, like mummy

777
00:45:33,330 --> 00:45:37,550
Speaker 1: curse mania was spreading. It's covered in the JSTOR Daily article,

778
00:45:37,610 --> 00:45:40,310
Speaker 1: Was It Really a Mummy's Curse? by Alison C. Meyer

779
00:45:40,350 --> 00:45:45,569
Speaker 1: from 2019. You had just decades of writers who were

780
00:45:45,790 --> 00:45:49,989
Speaker 1: eager to attribute any death of any halfway connected individual

781
00:45:50,770 --> 00:45:53,790
Speaker 1: to the supposed curse. So just a few examples of this.

782
00:45:54,469 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: Sir Bruce Ingham, not even part of the team that

783
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: opened the tomb, but he accepted a mummy's hand paperweight

784
00:46:03,380 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 1: from Howard Carter, and then his house burned down. So

785
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,779
Speaker 1: people were like, was this the curse? Like, well, it

786
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,250
Speaker 1: seems a few steps removed, but I guess you could

787
00:46:14,270 --> 00:46:18,469
Speaker 1: make the case for it. Another one, American financier George J.

788
00:46:18,550 --> 00:46:23,830
Speaker 1: Gould contracted pneumonia apparently after visiting the tomb. Was this

789
00:46:23,910 --> 00:46:26,819
Speaker 1: the curse as well? I mean, a lot of things

790
00:46:26,860 --> 00:46:29,420
Speaker 1: are going to happen to you after you visit any

791
00:46:29,460 --> 00:46:33,580
Speaker 1: given place. You know, again, this just gets into magical

792
00:46:33,620 --> 00:46:36,810
Speaker 1: thinking and all and ideas of bad luck and bad omens.

793
00:46:37,210 --> 00:46:40,549
Speaker 1: You did that one thing that may or may not

794
00:46:40,610 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: have any sort of moral weight to it. And then

795
00:46:43,580 --> 00:46:47,550
Speaker 1: later on, you wonder if these two things are connected. Yeah. Oh,

796
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,739
Speaker 1: and then this one's really good. In 1970, 1970, again,

797
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:55,739
Speaker 1: an alleged expedition member. So I'm not even sure this

798
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,430
Speaker 1: was someone that was proven to have actually been there,

799
00:46:58,790 --> 00:47:03,390
Speaker 1: was injured in a traffic accident. And the London Times.

800
00:47:03,390 --> 00:47:04,689
Speaker 2: 48 years later, is that right?

801
00:47:04,710 --> 00:47:08,009
Speaker 1: Yeah. The London Times apparently was not too shy to

802
00:47:08,050 --> 00:47:11,870
Speaker 1: suggest that maybe it's a curse. If so, I would

803
00:47:11,910 --> 00:47:15,190
Speaker 1: say that curse had been read too much and was

804
00:47:15,230 --> 00:47:18,350
Speaker 1: a little weak. if it just causes a traffic accident

805
00:47:18,489 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: decades later, and again, not a fatal one.

806
00:47:21,450 --> 00:47:25,690
Speaker 2: And again, we already said this, but there was no curse.

807
00:47:25,930 --> 00:47:29,350
Speaker 2: We're not even saying there wasn't magic. There wasn't even an,

808
00:47:30,150 --> 00:47:31,700
Speaker 2: a suggestion of magic.

809
00:47:31,989 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: Right.

810
00:47:32,489 --> 00:47:32,739
Speaker 2: Right.

811
00:47:32,820 --> 00:47:37,879
Speaker 1: The suggestion emerges completely from sensationalist news. And then, you know,

812
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:41,340
Speaker 1: and then it's tied into fiction and so forth. Um, in,

813
00:47:42,219 --> 00:47:47,250
Speaker 1: In 2002, epidemiologist Mark R. Nelson published The Mummy's Curse,

814
00:47:47,290 --> 00:47:51,170
Speaker 1: historical cohort study in the British Medical Journal. And this

815
00:47:51,230 --> 00:47:53,090
Speaker 1: is worth looking up. He does a great job breaking

816
00:47:53,130 --> 00:47:57,170
Speaker 1: it all down. He points out, OK, 44 Westerners were

817
00:47:57,230 --> 00:48:00,760
Speaker 1: present at the opening of the tomb. Twenty five of them,

818
00:48:00,969 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: you could say, were exposed. So I guess actually entered

819
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 1: the tomb as part of the work. And based on

820
00:48:06,380 --> 00:48:08,100
Speaker 1: this information, he broke it down. I'll get into some

821
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:10,630
Speaker 1: of the ways it's broken down here. he found that

822
00:48:10,650 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 1: there was no evidence of any kind of a direct

823
00:48:12,900 --> 00:48:15,980
Speaker 1: curse and that there was no effect on survival time

824
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:20,100
Speaker 1: for any exposure or numbers of exposures. Because remember, some

825
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 1: people only went in once. Other people were going in

826
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:27,910
Speaker 1: and out. Work continued there for multiple seasons. Fritz covers

827
00:48:27,950 --> 00:48:31,859
Speaker 1: this in Egyptomania as well and And yes, this idea

828
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: of the curse doesn't hold up to any amount of scrutiny.

829
00:48:34,020 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 1: Of the 25, sometimes I've read 26, you know, basically

830
00:48:37,300 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: around 25 people present at the opening of the tomb,

831
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,390
Speaker 1: 20 of them were still alive more than a decade later.

832
00:48:44,530 --> 00:48:48,650
Speaker 1: Fritz writes, obviously the curse was not operating comprehensively against

833
00:48:48,690 --> 00:48:52,690
Speaker 1: supposed desecrators of Tutankhamen's tomb. And of the six who

834
00:48:52,830 --> 00:48:57,819
Speaker 1: had died, most had died of old age. But clearly

835
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,509
Speaker 1: the idea was just simply too enticing. The idea of

836
00:49:01,550 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 1: an ancient mummy's curse, as multiple writers have pointed out,

837
00:49:04,510 --> 00:49:07,340
Speaker 1: they just have too many cool factors here. The idea

838
00:49:07,380 --> 00:49:10,100
Speaker 1: of ancient curses, again, even though there's not one in

839
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,839
Speaker 1: this particular case, but just the general idea of them,

840
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:19,850
Speaker 1: just a sensational and legitimately important archaeological find, mummies, distant lands.

841
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:25,300
Speaker 1: It's just too much. People couldn't help themselves. And I

842
00:49:25,340 --> 00:49:28,090
Speaker 1: think it's one of the interesting things about Egyptomania in general.

843
00:49:28,610 --> 00:49:32,930
Speaker 1: It's a broad tent that thankfully contains and leads to

844
00:49:33,010 --> 00:49:36,489
Speaker 1: a great deal of serious Egyptology and serious interest in

845
00:49:37,550 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 1: in ancient Egyptian topics and also in ultimately contemporary Egyptian topics.

846
00:49:42,070 --> 00:49:47,980
Speaker 1: But it also includes all manner of fiction, fantasy, superstition, pseudo-history, pseudo-archaeology,

847
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:52,219
Speaker 1: conspiracy thinking, new religious thought. You know, not all of

848
00:49:52,260 --> 00:49:54,860
Speaker 1: that is bad, but some of it can be, at

849
00:49:54,880 --> 00:50:07,859
Speaker 1: least if there's too much of it. At any rate,

850
00:50:07,890 --> 00:50:11,129
Speaker 1: the idea of the curse of the pharaohs continued with

851
00:50:11,190 --> 00:50:15,210
Speaker 1: various ideas often brought up as to just why the

852
00:50:15,290 --> 00:50:20,549
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian tombs killed people. Again, they didn't, but again,

853
00:50:20,570 --> 00:50:24,450
Speaker 1: we're talking about this pervasive myth, this pervasive idea.

854
00:50:24,850 --> 00:50:27,670
Speaker 2: Right. We're talking about explanations that were offered for a

855
00:50:27,710 --> 00:50:31,290
Speaker 2: phenomenon that was actually not anything other than what you

856
00:50:31,310 --> 00:50:32,430
Speaker 2: would expect from chance.

857
00:50:32,810 --> 00:50:34,860
Speaker 1: Right. One of the most common is just, oh, there's

858
00:50:34,890 --> 00:50:37,720
Speaker 1: a curse tablet. Right. And again, in many of these cases,

859
00:50:37,780 --> 00:50:41,720
Speaker 1: there's no cursed tablet or thing. They end up having

860
00:50:41,860 --> 00:50:44,220
Speaker 1: some sort of story about a particular item being cursed,

861
00:50:44,260 --> 00:50:51,509
Speaker 1: even though there's nothing archaeological or even like subjectively threatening

862
00:50:51,570 --> 00:50:55,630
Speaker 1: about it. Colleen Darnell brought this up in her talk.

863
00:50:55,650 --> 00:51:00,190
Speaker 1: You know, there are certain Egyptian items that there's like

864
00:51:00,230 --> 00:51:02,770
Speaker 1: a legacy of superstition about them, but they're not even

865
00:51:02,810 --> 00:51:05,990
Speaker 1: like threatening looking or anything. It's just they're pretty common.

866
00:51:06,050 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: But Once you get this idea attached to them, it's

867
00:51:08,700 --> 00:51:11,220
Speaker 1: hard to shake. Oh, here's one. This was a Daily

868
00:51:11,260 --> 00:51:14,900
Speaker 1: Mail consideration. What if the mosquito that bit Lord Carnarvon

869
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 1: had filled up on poisonous embalming fluid first? I mean,

870
00:51:21,100 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 1: I guess it's an interesting idea, but I don't think

871
00:51:24,660 --> 00:51:26,609
Speaker 1: there's any reason to back this up.

872
00:51:27,070 --> 00:51:32,529
Speaker 2: Wait, wait. The lethal dose of poisonous embalming fluid didn't

873
00:51:32,610 --> 00:51:35,250
Speaker 2: kill the mosquito, but it did kill the man that

874
00:51:35,270 --> 00:51:36,029
Speaker 2: the mosquito bit?

875
00:51:36,660 --> 00:51:39,029
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then how did it get it? The mosquitoes, uh,

876
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,170
Speaker 1: are not gonna, uh, they're not gonna feed on an

877
00:51:42,310 --> 00:51:44,850
Speaker 1: ancient mummy. Uh, and, uh, there are just too many

878
00:51:44,870 --> 00:51:47,569
Speaker 1: problems with this. So many holes in this one, but

879
00:51:47,590 --> 00:51:51,150
Speaker 1: it's so ridiculous. I had to mention, um, let's see, uh,

880
00:51:52,450 --> 00:51:55,730
Speaker 1: trap toxins in the tomb. Um, this is another idea

881
00:51:55,750 --> 00:51:58,049
Speaker 1: that's often brought up and this, this idea, I have

882
00:51:58,070 --> 00:52:00,750
Speaker 1: to admit, smacks a bit of miasma theory, you know,

883
00:52:00,930 --> 00:52:05,740
Speaker 1: trapped bad air, um, But, you know, there is maybe

884
00:52:05,780 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 1: a little more, certainly more to this idea than there

885
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:12,620
Speaker 1: is to deadly embalming fluid mosquitoes. You know, the air

886
00:52:12,660 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 1: inside a tomb may well be stale, could be low

887
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,380
Speaker 1: oxygen and high CO2. So you could make a case

888
00:52:18,500 --> 00:52:22,660
Speaker 1: with some tombs for methane and hydrogen sulfide. But in general,

889
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,420
Speaker 1: these are just hypotheticals and there's no proof that anything

890
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: like this has been connected with actual tombs and their

891
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:33,750
Speaker 1: openings or with human illnesses due to their opening. Kind

892
00:52:33,770 --> 00:52:39,629
Speaker 1: of coming back to the mosquito theory, chemicals from mummification

893
00:52:39,670 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 1: processes are sometimes brought up, but this doesn't seem to

894
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 1: be a strong short-term concern. Let's see, there are also

895
00:52:47,460 --> 00:52:52,020
Speaker 1: highly speculative ideas concerning radon gas in certain tombs. But

896
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:54,780
Speaker 1: one of the more interesting ones is the idea, okay,

897
00:52:55,219 --> 00:53:00,180
Speaker 1: how about toxic mold? Essentially, toxic fungal spores released in

898
00:53:00,219 --> 00:53:06,549
Speaker 1: a tomb's opening. This hypothesis, if true, just leaning into

899
00:53:06,590 --> 00:53:10,070
Speaker 1: it for a moment, the idea is that, okay, maybe

900
00:53:10,130 --> 00:53:15,210
Speaker 1: this exasperated the case of Lord Carnarvon that just, you know, like, okay,

901
00:53:15,230 --> 00:53:17,630
Speaker 1: he was already sick. You know, he's going to end

902
00:53:17,670 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: up with this cut on his face that gets infected.

903
00:53:20,489 --> 00:53:22,069
Speaker 1: But what if on top of that, we also had

904
00:53:22,090 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: toxic spores? I don't know. I don't think it's, I don't,

905
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,339
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like it's a very strong argument for

906
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:33,990
Speaker 1: a but it does lead to a very interesting case

907
00:53:34,030 --> 00:53:37,170
Speaker 1: from outside of Egypt that does involve this actual phenomenon.

908
00:53:37,710 --> 00:53:40,609
Speaker 2: At least as a possibility that's taken seriously.

909
00:53:40,870 --> 00:53:41,669
Speaker 1: Right, right.

910
00:53:42,530 --> 00:53:44,660
Speaker 2: So, well, let's talk about that example, because I didn't

911
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:46,819
Speaker 2: know about this before you mentioned it to me, and

912
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:47,940
Speaker 2: this one is really interesting.

913
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,460
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did not know about this one either until

914
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,100
Speaker 1: I took Colleen Darnell's class on the Curse of the Pharaohs.

915
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: She brought it up, and yeah, I was instantly fascinated. Again,

916
00:53:57,980 --> 00:54:01,660
Speaker 1: Colleen Darnell, the Egyptologist, Go visit her website. She does

917
00:54:01,700 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: these classes online all the time. They're very cost effective

918
00:54:06,100 --> 00:54:09,549
Speaker 1: and they're a lot of fun. But yeah, this is so, again,

919
00:54:09,570 --> 00:54:11,690
Speaker 1: stressing that the Pharaoh's curse is very much a 20th

920
00:54:11,730 --> 00:54:14,710
Speaker 1: century myth, but a persistent one stirred on by fiction

921
00:54:14,750 --> 00:54:18,110
Speaker 1: and sensationalism. But this one idea that we've touched on,

922
00:54:18,210 --> 00:54:20,910
Speaker 1: that opening a tomb could in effect release a death

923
00:54:20,969 --> 00:54:23,690
Speaker 1: curse in the form of a deadly pathogen, is not

924
00:54:23,750 --> 00:54:27,299
Speaker 1: entirely crazy because we have one case where it may

925
00:54:27,340 --> 00:54:30,790
Speaker 1: have happened. So this takes us outside of Egypt. This

926
00:54:30,850 --> 00:54:34,650
Speaker 1: takes us to Krakow, Poland, and it concerns the 1973

927
00:54:34,650 --> 00:54:40,089
Speaker 1: opening of the tomb of Casimir IV Jagiellon. And apparently

928
00:54:40,670 --> 00:54:45,470
Speaker 1: opening this tomb did release fungal spores of Aspergillus flavus,

929
00:54:46,980 --> 00:54:49,540
Speaker 1: which was discovered in large amounts in this tomb. And

930
00:54:49,580 --> 00:54:54,700
Speaker 1: it may have ultimately killed as many as 10 conservationists

931
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,500
Speaker 1: that had opened and worked in the tomb and done

932
00:54:57,560 --> 00:54:58,580
Speaker 1: so within a year's time.

933
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:02,660
Speaker 2: Yeah. So from what I understand, the many people who

934
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 2: did work on this opened tomb did soon die afterwards.

935
00:55:07,140 --> 00:55:12,220
Speaker 2: And there were many spores of Aspergillus, this Aspergillus species

936
00:55:12,340 --> 00:55:16,399
Speaker 2: found there. And specifically, the culprit was thought to be

937
00:55:16,460 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 2: what are called aflatoxins. This is a variety of poisonous

938
00:55:22,060 --> 00:55:27,800
Speaker 2: fungal toxin or mycotoxin. produced by different molds and fungal species,

939
00:55:27,860 --> 00:55:35,890
Speaker 2: but especially Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Mycotoxicosis, meaning acute

940
00:55:36,810 --> 00:55:41,509
Speaker 2: high fungal toxin exposure, this from aflatoxin exposure, can have

941
00:55:41,570 --> 00:55:45,950
Speaker 2: a number of serious negative health effects, both long-term and short-term.

942
00:55:46,370 --> 00:55:50,180
Speaker 2: It seems most importantly by attacking the liver, potentially causing

943
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:55,620
Speaker 2: hepatitis and greatly increasing risk of liver cancer. I read

944
00:55:55,680 --> 00:56:02,090
Speaker 2: that aflatoxins are one of the most potent carcinogens known

945
00:56:02,230 --> 00:56:06,790
Speaker 2: of in nature. So they attack the liver, and with

946
00:56:06,850 --> 00:56:11,840
Speaker 2: serious enough exposure, aflatoxins can cause acute death, cause acute

947
00:56:11,950 --> 00:56:16,379
Speaker 2: organ failure, especially with the liver and death. And more

948
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 2: moderate rates of exposure have potentially been linked to all

949
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:25,779
Speaker 2: kinds of other problems, including growth stunting in children. Though

950
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:30,350
Speaker 2: most of the concern about aflatoxin exposure comes not from

951
00:56:30,489 --> 00:56:34,890
Speaker 2: opening tombs, but from exposure through contaminated food crops. So

952
00:56:34,930 --> 00:56:39,569
Speaker 2: like contaminated nuts or grains or other food crops that

953
00:56:39,750 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 2: are stored in like warm, humid conditions can develop aflatoxin

954
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:49,650
Speaker 2: contamination through a bunch of aspergillus in them. And this

955
00:56:49,670 --> 00:56:53,830
Speaker 2: can be really, really bad to eat. In fact, aflatoxins,

956
00:56:53,930 --> 00:56:57,930
Speaker 2: I believe were first discovered in the 1960s. And this

957
00:56:57,989 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 2: was linked to this famous case of the so-called Turkey

958
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 2: X disease among not the country Turkey, but the animal

959
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 2: turkeys in England, where I was looking at a study

960
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:15,170
Speaker 2: that mentions this called aflatoxins history, significant milestones, recent data

961
00:57:15,250 --> 00:57:18,460
Speaker 2: on their toxicity and ways to mitigation. in the journal

962
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:23,660
Speaker 2: Toxins from 2021 by Pikova et al. And in this overview,

963
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:28,210
Speaker 2: they describe as follows, quote, In the late 1950s and

964
00:57:28,250 --> 00:57:32,470
Speaker 2: early 1960s, a new, so far unknown, turkey disease characterized

965
00:57:32,510 --> 00:57:36,190
Speaker 2: by heavy mortality was identified in England. After the turkey

966
00:57:36,230 --> 00:57:40,210
Speaker 2: disease outbreak of unknown nature and etiology, the turkey so-called

967
00:57:40,590 --> 00:57:45,620
Speaker 2: X disease, the discovery of aflatoxins began. A total of

968
00:57:45,620 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 2: 100,000 turkeys died of so-called turkey X disease after being

969
00:57:50,620 --> 00:57:55,100
Speaker 2: fed with contaminated Brazilian ground nut meal on a poultry

970
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 2: farm in London. Though, of course, it hasn't only affected turkeys,

971
00:57:58,780 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 2: lots of humans around the world. There have been aflatoxin

972
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 2: breakouts in food crops around the world, and many people

973
00:58:05,660 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 2: have died as well. So this is like a serious,

974
00:58:08,620 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 2: very potent toxin. But usually the risk is improperly stored

975
00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:19,020
Speaker 2: food or contaminated food, again, not tombs. But of course,

976
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:21,510
Speaker 2: if there were a whole lot of aflatoxin from a

977
00:58:21,590 --> 00:58:26,830
Speaker 2: strongly aspergillus-contaminated tomb, you could imagine that also being a

978
00:58:26,910 --> 00:58:29,810
Speaker 2: serious health risk to people who were messing around in there.

979
00:58:30,350 --> 00:58:35,250
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, this fungus is widely distributed

980
00:58:35,270 --> 00:58:41,080
Speaker 1: in soil across the globe and sometimes colonizes important agricultural crops,

981
00:58:41,140 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: but is not something that's like only found in tombs.

982
00:58:44,590 --> 00:58:46,850
Speaker 1: And in fact, this is like, this is the case

983
00:58:47,150 --> 00:58:49,270
Speaker 1: of this occurring. I don't believe this to be a

984
00:58:49,310 --> 00:58:53,010
Speaker 1: widespread phenomenon. Oh, a little background though. I want to

985
00:58:53,210 --> 00:58:56,530
Speaker 1: throw in Casimir IV Jaglan. Who was he? Well, he

986
00:58:56,550 --> 00:58:59,310
Speaker 1: was a 15th century Polish King and Lithuanian Grand Duke,

987
00:58:59,930 --> 00:59:02,370
Speaker 1: an important European ruler of the day noted for his

988
00:59:02,410 --> 00:59:05,310
Speaker 1: defeat of the Teutonic Knights during the 13 years war

989
00:59:05,330 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 1: of the 15th century. None of, this business with his

990
00:59:09,350 --> 00:59:12,370
Speaker 1: tomb reflects on anything good or bad about his life

991
00:59:12,470 --> 00:59:16,200
Speaker 1: or rule. And to be clear, there was absolutely no

992
00:59:16,430 --> 00:59:22,240
Speaker 1: issued Jagiellonian curse, despite some media sensationalism around this as well.

993
00:59:22,540 --> 00:59:27,220
Speaker 1: Like he never said, don't open my tomb or there'll

994
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:30,470
Speaker 1: be a fungus or anything like that. this just is

995
00:59:30,530 --> 00:59:34,190
Speaker 1: the way it panned out. But it certainly didn't stop

996
00:59:34,770 --> 00:59:38,650
Speaker 1: various folks from absorbing this information and then saying, well,

997
00:59:38,690 --> 00:59:43,210
Speaker 1: what about Tut's tomb? What if this actual occurrence is

998
00:59:43,290 --> 00:59:48,540
Speaker 1: the reason that people died because of opening King's Tut's tomb? Again,

999
00:59:48,820 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 1: all the problems with the accuracy of that statement in play,

1000
00:59:53,140 --> 00:59:57,760
Speaker 1: they just couldn't help themselves. So, Again, despite the fact

1001
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: that with King Tut, we're dealing really with only a

1002
01:00:00,380 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 1: single death with other very well-known factors in place. And

1003
01:00:06,580 --> 01:00:08,870
Speaker 1: we know that no one else associated with the opening

1004
01:00:08,910 --> 01:00:11,930
Speaker 1: of this tomb died of any mysterious causes. There's also

1005
01:00:12,050 --> 01:00:16,110
Speaker 1: no evidence that Tut's tomb contained dangerous microbes or fungi

1006
01:00:16,150 --> 01:00:20,210
Speaker 1: of any sort. Furthermore, according to Colleen Dornell, no one

1007
01:00:20,390 --> 01:00:23,470
Speaker 1: she knows of has ever become ill from entering an

1008
01:00:23,530 --> 01:00:26,860
Speaker 1: Egyptian tomb. Yes, you can catch pneumonia later. You can

1009
01:00:26,900 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: catch all number of things later. And you will eventually

1010
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: die after visiting an Egyptian tomb. That's 100% true. But

1011
01:00:33,980 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 1: that'll also happen if you don't visit an Egyptian tomb,

1012
01:00:40,450 --> 01:00:42,910
Speaker 1: which doesn't mean you absolutely should, because again, it's going

1013
01:00:42,930 --> 01:00:45,250
Speaker 1: to happen either way. But I guess what I'm trying

1014
01:00:45,270 --> 01:00:47,230
Speaker 1: to say is, yeah, this idea of there being some

1015
01:00:47,290 --> 01:00:50,110
Speaker 1: sort of a biological agent in the tomb, that does,

1016
01:00:51,290 --> 01:00:54,910
Speaker 1: in a medical sense, curse the individual. It is technically

1017
01:00:55,030 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 1: possible with certain tombs, but not this one.

1018
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:03,140
Speaker 2: Right. Technically possible, but doesn't even seem to be especially

1019
01:01:03,260 --> 01:01:05,620
Speaker 2: common with the opening of tombs.

1020
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:12,410
Speaker 1: Right, right. But it's an infectious idea. Yeah. MST3K fans,

1021
01:01:12,450 --> 01:01:16,670
Speaker 1: for example, especially may remember a 1982 mummy movie titled

1022
01:01:16,750 --> 01:01:20,310
Speaker 1: Time Walker. It stars Ben Murphy, and its plot concerns

1023
01:01:20,390 --> 01:01:24,230
Speaker 1: a deadly alien fungus inside an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus.

1024
01:01:24,630 --> 01:01:26,169
Speaker 2: I've never made it all the way through this film,

1025
01:01:26,190 --> 01:01:28,110
Speaker 2: but I love the idea of a space mummy.

1026
01:01:28,810 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't seen it in a while, but I

1027
01:01:30,180 --> 01:01:34,040
Speaker 1: remember the ending is very memorable. I forget all the

1028
01:01:34,060 --> 01:01:35,580
Speaker 1: beats on the way there, but the ending is a

1029
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Now, another question in all of this

1030
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:51,600
Speaker 1: may come to mind, and that is, well, what about traps?

1031
01:01:52,740 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: I mean, on one level, you could say, what if

1032
01:01:54,380 --> 01:01:56,480
Speaker 1: there was some sort of a biological agent and it

1033
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:58,200
Speaker 1: was laid as a trap? Well, I don't think there's

1034
01:01:58,260 --> 01:02:00,910
Speaker 1: any serious argument to be made for that being the case.

1035
01:02:01,990 --> 01:02:05,810
Speaker 2: But, Rob, we discussed in the last episode how actually

1036
01:02:05,950 --> 01:02:09,690
Speaker 2: a lot of... In a lot of ancient Egyptian thinking,

1037
01:02:09,890 --> 01:02:12,490
Speaker 2: it was a common thing to attack a problem with

1038
01:02:12,610 --> 01:02:18,310
Speaker 2: multiple mechanisms at once. You would have a magical arm

1039
01:02:18,330 --> 01:02:21,370
Speaker 2: of attack and a practical arm of attack against the

1040
01:02:21,410 --> 01:02:25,150
Speaker 2: same issue. So if tomb robbers were something you were

1041
01:02:25,190 --> 01:02:29,290
Speaker 2: worried about, why not have both a curse on the tomb,

1042
01:02:29,790 --> 01:02:32,910
Speaker 2: magical arm of attack, and practical traps? That would make sense,

1043
01:02:32,970 --> 01:02:33,310
Speaker 2: wouldn't it?

1044
01:02:33,950 --> 01:02:37,290
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a reasonable question to ask on

1045
01:02:37,370 --> 01:02:39,910
Speaker 1: one level, given that, I mean, we look at the pyramids,

1046
01:02:39,930 --> 01:02:42,470
Speaker 1: we look at these, the great works of the ancient Egyptians.

1047
01:02:42,490 --> 01:02:47,040
Speaker 1: We know they were capable of amazing things by contemporary

1048
01:02:47,100 --> 01:02:50,960
Speaker 1: standards or certainly their own standards, the standards of their time.

1049
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 1: On top of that, you know, we've all seen a

1050
01:02:53,700 --> 01:02:57,860
Speaker 1: little Indiana Jones. We've seen at least fictional examples of

1051
01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:00,570
Speaker 1: this sort of thing going on. And, you know, here

1052
01:03:00,610 --> 01:03:04,320
Speaker 1: on the show, we've discussed the possibility of tomb traps

1053
01:03:04,340 --> 01:03:07,180
Speaker 1: within the context of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang,

1054
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:10,940
Speaker 1: the first sovereign emperor of China. So if that's even

1055
01:03:10,980 --> 01:03:16,910
Speaker 1: in the discussion for that, I believe, as yet unopened tomb. Well,

1056
01:03:17,490 --> 01:03:18,630
Speaker 1: what about Egyptian tombs?

1057
01:03:19,010 --> 01:03:21,860
Speaker 2: I mean, even in that case, my memory is. We

1058
01:03:21,900 --> 01:03:24,500
Speaker 2: were like, are there any booby trap tombs like in

1059
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:27,390
Speaker 2: Indiana Jones? And that was the example where there's like

1060
01:03:27,450 --> 01:03:31,050
Speaker 2: the best case that there might be booby traps. But

1061
01:03:31,290 --> 01:03:34,930
Speaker 2: even in that case, it's only a possibility. And also,

1062
01:03:35,470 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 2: if there ever were such traps, they're probably not still working.

1063
01:03:39,280 --> 01:03:42,220
Speaker 1: Right, right. And if I and, you know, I imagine

1064
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:44,120
Speaker 1: you could also ask questions like, OK, if you have

1065
01:03:44,140 --> 01:03:46,180
Speaker 1: some sort of trap set up, how much of that

1066
01:03:46,220 --> 01:03:48,200
Speaker 1: is like a legitimate real world trap? How much of

1067
01:03:48,260 --> 01:03:51,190
Speaker 1: it is indeed magical thinking, like having a stone? or

1068
01:03:51,230 --> 01:03:54,510
Speaker 1: some sort of superstitious or religious practice, like having a

1069
01:03:54,550 --> 01:03:58,670
Speaker 1: stone warrior within your tomb, or like having various goods

1070
01:03:58,730 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 1: for the afterlife, perhaps having some sort of a crossbow

1071
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:07,640
Speaker 1: set up to kill someone who enters, that could as

1072
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:09,500
Speaker 1: well be as much a curse as it is a

1073
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker 1: practical consideration. But to be clear, with Egyptian tombs, traps

1074
01:04:15,620 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 1: of this nature, you know, pure Indiana Jones traps like

1075
01:04:19,410 --> 01:04:22,570
Speaker 1: trap doors and spike pits and darts that shoot out

1076
01:04:22,590 --> 01:04:28,380
Speaker 1: of the walls, crossbows. These are apparently unknown. And there's

1077
01:04:28,420 --> 01:04:31,170
Speaker 1: actually a really good life science article about this topic

1078
01:04:31,190 --> 01:04:35,000
Speaker 1: from just last month by Owen Jarrus. I found it

1079
01:04:35,020 --> 01:04:38,660
Speaker 1: an interesting read. The author spoke with Reg Clark, author

1080
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: of Securing Eternity, Ancient Egyptian Tomb Protection from Prehistory. And

1081
01:04:43,380 --> 01:04:47,380
Speaker 1: the basics of this, the counter argument to the idea

1082
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:50,700
Speaker 1: of traps and why we don't see them in ancient

1083
01:04:50,740 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: Egyptian tombs, it comes down to three factors. So first

1084
01:04:54,300 --> 01:04:56,880
Speaker 1: of all, just about any booby trap you can think

1085
01:04:57,060 --> 01:05:01,100
Speaker 1: of would only have limited success against tomb raiders. Because

1086
01:05:01,300 --> 01:05:05,300
Speaker 1: while Indiana Jones works alone or with just one individual,

1087
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:07,420
Speaker 1: a love interest, or someone who's going to betray him,

1088
01:05:08,300 --> 01:05:12,720
Speaker 1: actual ancient Egyptian tomb raiders worked in large groups. So

1089
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:14,880
Speaker 1: if you had a death trap in place, yeah, you

1090
01:05:14,920 --> 01:05:17,060
Speaker 1: might kill a few of them, but the rest are

1091
01:05:17,100 --> 01:05:19,160
Speaker 1: going to keep going, work around the trap, or the

1092
01:05:19,180 --> 01:05:22,120
Speaker 1: trap's no longer going to be effective. And they might

1093
01:05:22,160 --> 01:05:24,680
Speaker 1: just realize, hey, we encountered a death trap, so I

1094
01:05:24,700 --> 01:05:27,260
Speaker 1: guess we're on the right track. We should keep going

1095
01:05:27,300 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 1: in this direction.

1096
01:05:28,730 --> 01:05:31,770
Speaker 2: That itself sort of highlights some ways that you could

1097
01:05:31,810 --> 01:05:36,140
Speaker 2: have practical protections for a tomb that wouldn't be deadly

1098
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:36,990
Speaker 2: booby traps.

1099
01:05:38,140 --> 01:05:40,940
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And then again, also, of course, there are

1100
01:05:40,980 --> 01:05:43,900
Speaker 1: all these practical concerns with a passive trap. They work

1101
01:05:43,940 --> 01:05:45,900
Speaker 1: great in an Indiana Jones movie, but would they work

1102
01:05:45,940 --> 01:05:50,520
Speaker 1: in reality? And when it comes down to it, it

1103
01:05:50,540 --> 01:05:54,800
Speaker 1: seems like architectural features were just far more effective ways

1104
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 1: of keeping out tomb raiders. So passages sealed with huge

1105
01:05:59,300 --> 01:06:02,540
Speaker 1: sliding blocks or just, uh, or just a cascade of

1106
01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:07,000
Speaker 1: rocky material, um, that would work far better than any

1107
01:06:07,060 --> 01:06:10,100
Speaker 1: trap you could imagine because, uh, you know, it's just, just,

1108
01:06:10,220 --> 01:06:12,860
Speaker 1: you know, you're dealing with rock, you're dealing with, with

1109
01:06:12,900 --> 01:06:17,260
Speaker 1: just sheer weight and mass. Uh, additionally, it's possible that

1110
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:21,070
Speaker 1: some pyramid passages that seem to lead nowhere were included

1111
01:06:21,130 --> 01:06:24,310
Speaker 1: to confuse tomb robbers. I think there's still some open

1112
01:06:24,350 --> 01:06:29,030
Speaker 1: questions about this, uh, And I've also read the possibility

1113
01:06:29,110 --> 01:06:31,910
Speaker 1: of trying to convince the tomb raider or the would-be

1114
01:06:31,950 --> 01:06:34,650
Speaker 1: tomb raider that the tomb has already been robbed is

1115
01:06:34,710 --> 01:06:39,950
Speaker 1: another possible strategy that was employed. And these would have all,

1116
01:06:40,130 --> 01:06:44,280
Speaker 1: especially the architectural features, these would have been the most

1117
01:06:44,340 --> 01:06:47,580
Speaker 1: effective against your tomb raiders. Just putting an enormous stone

1118
01:06:47,640 --> 01:06:50,380
Speaker 1: block between them and what they want to steal, that's

1119
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:52,060
Speaker 1: going to work better than anything. Right.

1120
01:06:52,100 --> 01:06:56,050
Speaker 2: So we know they definitely used the locking mechanisms, seal

1121
01:06:56,090 --> 01:06:59,350
Speaker 2: the entrance or try to hide the entrance. They may

1122
01:06:59,450 --> 01:07:03,930
Speaker 2: also have used various forms of confusion against tomb robbers,

1123
01:07:03,990 --> 01:07:07,420
Speaker 2: like maybe a false chamber or a false passage or

1124
01:07:07,460 --> 01:07:10,260
Speaker 2: something that's more up for debate. What we have no

1125
01:07:10,340 --> 01:07:13,460
Speaker 2: evidence of is like, yeah, spikes that shoot out or

1126
01:07:13,580 --> 01:07:15,160
Speaker 2: crossbows or anything like that.

1127
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then on top of this, first of all,

1128
01:07:17,660 --> 01:07:21,830
Speaker 1: we have to think about the fact that, yeah, the

1129
01:07:21,870 --> 01:07:27,370
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians clearly thought about eternity and long-term time in

1130
01:07:27,410 --> 01:07:29,730
Speaker 1: the same way that humans today do as well. But

1131
01:07:30,050 --> 01:07:33,390
Speaker 1: they also were very concerned with the actual threats of

1132
01:07:33,490 --> 01:07:36,910
Speaker 1: the day. And therefore, it was a little different than

1133
01:07:36,950 --> 01:07:40,510
Speaker 1: imagining Indiana Jones tromping in, right? You were dealing with

1134
01:07:40,690 --> 01:07:45,760
Speaker 1: known tomb raiders, known tomb raider groups, known operations that

1135
01:07:46,150 --> 01:07:48,690
Speaker 1: And therefore, you had, first of all, the potential for

1136
01:07:48,710 --> 01:07:52,720
Speaker 1: just human guards to be involved, human patrols. And you

1137
01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:55,200
Speaker 1: had the dual powers of, first of all, real world

1138
01:07:55,260 --> 01:07:59,320
Speaker 1: laws with brutal punishments for Tomb Raiders. And then on

1139
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:02,400
Speaker 1: top of that, and also in case those didn't work,

1140
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:04,800
Speaker 1: the supernatural curses we've been discussing.

1141
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:07,750
Speaker 2: Yes. And to really hammer on something you said just

1142
01:08:07,790 --> 01:08:12,490
Speaker 2: a second ago, from my understanding, the biggest concern about

1143
01:08:13,020 --> 01:08:17,400
Speaker 2: about grave robbers in ancient Egypt wasn't about the distant future.

1144
01:08:17,479 --> 01:08:19,660
Speaker 2: It was about, you were concerned about people who would

1145
01:08:19,689 --> 01:08:22,269
Speaker 2: come rob your tomb a few months after it was

1146
01:08:22,310 --> 01:08:24,210
Speaker 2: sealed or within a few years.

1147
01:08:24,470 --> 01:08:26,670
Speaker 1: Yeah, which was, again, the case with King Tut's tomb

1148
01:08:26,710 --> 01:08:30,170
Speaker 1: as well, like robbed twice just in the immediate aftermath

1149
01:08:31,090 --> 01:08:34,130
Speaker 1: of the burial. So yeah, this is more what they

1150
01:08:34,189 --> 01:08:38,270
Speaker 1: seem to be concerned about. But it is almost, we

1151
01:08:38,310 --> 01:08:41,190
Speaker 1: almost have, it almost feels counterintuitive at times when we

1152
01:08:41,770 --> 01:08:43,470
Speaker 1: We think about them because we are when we think

1153
01:08:43,510 --> 01:08:46,470
Speaker 1: about the ancient Egyptians. Yeah, we do get down and

1154
01:08:46,570 --> 01:08:49,910
Speaker 1: think about them as like real people that lived real lives.

1155
01:08:49,970 --> 01:08:53,390
Speaker 1: And we're in so many respects, much like we are.

1156
01:08:54,170 --> 01:08:56,010
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, yeah, we also think about

1157
01:08:56,050 --> 01:09:00,759
Speaker 1: an ancient people that have this kind of mythic quality

1158
01:09:00,820 --> 01:09:04,400
Speaker 1: about everything they do, even if the thing they're doing

1159
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:08,430
Speaker 1: is consuming honey or trying to treat an illness or

1160
01:09:08,450 --> 01:09:11,689
Speaker 1: just every little thing that occupies our lives today.

1161
01:09:12,240 --> 01:09:15,979
Speaker 2: When we think about them, it's tempting to imagine that

1162
01:09:16,160 --> 01:09:19,719
Speaker 2: they were thinking about us, but they probably weren't thinking

1163
01:09:19,780 --> 01:09:23,519
Speaker 2: about us. They were much more likely thinking about themselves

1164
01:09:23,580 --> 01:09:24,740
Speaker 2: and their own contemporaries.

1165
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:28,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. Though one point that Colleen Darnell made was that,

1166
01:09:28,780 --> 01:09:31,300
Speaker 1: you know, King Tut would probably be pleased to know

1167
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:33,820
Speaker 1: that we are still talking about him, still thinking about

1168
01:09:33,860 --> 01:09:36,660
Speaker 1: him today. You know, I mean, talk about you know,

1169
01:09:37,040 --> 01:09:40,150
Speaker 1: long-term name value or at least a resurgence. You know,

1170
01:09:40,490 --> 01:09:42,189
Speaker 1: I guess there was a long period of time where

1171
01:09:42,210 --> 01:09:45,150
Speaker 1: people were maybe not talking about Tutankhamen. But today, I mean,

1172
01:09:45,910 --> 01:09:49,860
Speaker 1: he is probably, for most people, he is like the

1173
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:52,300
Speaker 1: pharaoh you would name if you went out and asked

1174
01:09:52,340 --> 01:09:54,900
Speaker 1: people on the street, like, name a pharaoh, they would

1175
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:55,760
Speaker 1: probably say King Tut.

1176
01:09:56,320 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 2: Oh, well, to bring it back to the subject of

1177
01:09:58,420 --> 01:10:02,150
Speaker 2: Rittner's divine compulsion, One of the things that a tomb

1178
01:10:02,210 --> 01:10:04,600
Speaker 2: would sometimes say, you know, the power of a deity

1179
01:10:04,689 --> 01:10:07,240
Speaker 2: or supernatural being will seize you and compel you to

1180
01:10:07,300 --> 01:10:10,260
Speaker 2: do is to speak the name, speak the name of

1181
01:10:10,300 --> 01:10:13,160
Speaker 2: the person buried here, because that was thought to have

1182
01:10:13,220 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 2: a power of its own. It's something that some people,

1183
01:10:15,700 --> 01:10:18,120
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people buried in ancient Egypt

1184
01:10:18,220 --> 01:10:21,170
Speaker 2: wanted people to do. They wanted people after they had

1185
01:10:21,229 --> 01:10:24,070
Speaker 2: died to continue to speak their name. That was like

1186
01:10:24,090 --> 01:10:26,250
Speaker 2: a blessing you could bestow upon them.

1187
01:10:26,770 --> 01:10:27,570
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

1188
01:10:28,130 --> 01:10:30,790
Speaker 2: So do something nice for an ancient Egyptian. Speak their name.

1189
01:10:31,510 --> 01:10:33,950
Speaker 1: There you go. All right. We're going to go ahead

1190
01:10:33,970 --> 01:10:35,809
Speaker 1: and close this out. But we'd love to hear from

1191
01:10:35,870 --> 01:10:38,689
Speaker 1: everyone out there. We'd love to hear from folks who

1192
01:10:39,470 --> 01:10:44,500
Speaker 1: have engaged in Egyptomania and Egyptology to varying degrees. If

1193
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:47,560
Speaker 1: you've visited any of the sites that we have referenced

1194
01:10:48,300 --> 01:10:50,519
Speaker 1: in these episodes, we would, of course, love to hear

1195
01:10:51,160 --> 01:10:54,840
Speaker 1: your experiences and gain your knowledge right in. We would

1196
01:10:54,860 --> 01:10:57,300
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff

1197
01:10:57,320 --> 01:10:59,280
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture

1198
01:10:59,300 --> 01:11:02,580
Speaker 1: podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays,

1199
01:11:02,620 --> 01:11:04,840
Speaker 1: we do a short-form episode, and on Fridays, we set

1200
01:11:04,880 --> 01:11:06,820
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

1201
01:11:06,860 --> 01:11:08,450
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema.

1202
01:11:08,950 --> 01:11:12,550
Speaker 2: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway.

1203
01:11:12,970 --> 01:11:14,350
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

1204
01:11:14,410 --> 01:11:16,870
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1205
01:11:16,930 --> 01:11:19,000
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello...

1206
01:11:19,250 --> 01:11:30,170
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to

1207
01:11:30,189 --> 01:11:32,310
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.

1208
01:11:32,689 --> 01:11:35,479
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1209
01:11:35,840 --> 01:11:38,420
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1210
01:11:52,790 --> 01:11:53,070
Speaker 1: Thank you.