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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And finally, that first October

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Speaker 3: chill is in the air. Rob I don't know if

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Speaker 3: you can see on the chat here, I am wearing

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Speaker 3: a long.

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Speaker 4: Sleeve shirt today.

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Speaker 3: It's very exciting at our house, where we love the

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Speaker 3: month of October, of course, and my daughter especially is

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Speaker 3: just thrilled that it's actually October. I don't know if

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Speaker 3: we've talked about this yet, but she is obsessed with

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Speaker 3: Halloween decorations. So she like, you know, the biggest thing

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Speaker 3: she wants to do right now is go out and

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Speaker 3: see which houses in our neighborhood have already put selkins out,

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Speaker 3: skeletons and vampires and all that. And there's this wonderful

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Speaker 3: like attraction repulsion to certain Halloween decorations, Like there's a

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Speaker 3: scary vampire that she wants to see. But then she's like,

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to close my eyes, but I want

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Speaker 3: to see it.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen the new big skeletons that are out.

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Speaker 4: I don't know about the new big skeleton.

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Speaker 2: So we had the big skeletons that just look like,

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Speaker 2: you know, a giant skeleton standing in a yard. But

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Speaker 2: this season there are new ones where it looks like

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Speaker 2: an even bigger skeleton is climbing out of the ground

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Speaker 2: of somebody's front yard. These are popping out throughout our

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Speaker 2: neighborhood and they're pretty great. Like, you can make a

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Speaker 2: big case for a lot of things in the world

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Speaker 2: being in decline, but not front yard skeletons. This is

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Speaker 2: an area that we're absolutely on the up and up with.

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Speaker 3: Wow, I don't think i've seen that. What we've seen

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Speaker 3: partially buried skeletons. It's almost a joke thing where people

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Speaker 3: have like a skull and then some skeleton hands and feet,

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Speaker 3: but it's like the body is underground, like it's sort of,

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Speaker 3: I don't know, half buried. But anyway, hello listeners. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: if you're new to the show and you're not familiar

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Speaker 3: with our seasonal traditions, here's the deal. Of course, Rob

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Speaker 3: and I are both Halloween heads, so every October were

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Speaker 3: all month long we indulge our monster obsessed brains, and

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Speaker 3: we devote all of our core episodes to spooky stuff,

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Speaker 3: witchy stuff, and we also make sure that all of

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Speaker 3: our Friday Weird House cinema selections are in the horror genre.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we talk about horror a good bit.

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Speaker 2: It's not hard for us to.

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Speaker 3: Do throughout the rest of the year too, but we

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Speaker 3: really drill in on horror for a Weird House in October.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, if you are new to our October season offerings.

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Speaker 3: Last year, our core episodes in October were about what

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Speaker 3: we did, a series on haunted locomotives and railroad madness.

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Speaker 3: There was a period where people were convinced that trains

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Speaker 3: were creating railway mad men. We talked about the demonology

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Speaker 3: of ancient Mesopotamia. We talked about pig monsters and a

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Speaker 3: series called The Hogs of Hell, getting into mythological monster's pigs,

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Speaker 3: and then also the paleontology record of what kind of

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Speaker 3: pig like animals that would actually horrify you did exist

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Speaker 3: in reality at one point. And then finally we did

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Speaker 3: an entry in our Grimoar of Horror series where we

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Speaker 3: each pick a horror short story to discuss and relate

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Speaker 3: it usually back to some kind of science or science

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Speaker 3: adjacent adjacent topic. And this year we've got a whole

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Speaker 3: month of stuff like that in store for you. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: if your new stick with us, of course, also if

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Speaker 3: you're old, stick with us as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, But earlier this week we got to jump on

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Speaker 3: things before October had technically begun. We got a head

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Speaker 3: start on things with part one of the series that

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Speaker 3: we're continuing today on Ancient Egyptian Curses. So if you

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Speaker 3: haven't heard that first episode, I would recommend going back

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Speaker 3: and listening to that first. You know, there are some

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Speaker 3: series where it makes more sense to listen out of order.

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Speaker 3: But the last time we really did kind of lay

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Speaker 3: the groundwork for today, but for a brief refresher, we

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Speaker 3: talked about the general context of magic in ancient Egypt,

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Speaker 3: with some main points being first of all, that to

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Speaker 3: the ancient Egyptians, there was not a clear distinction between

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Speaker 3: magic and religion like we see in some other religious

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Speaker 3: and cultural settings. In ancient Egypt, the use of magic

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Speaker 3: spells and temple based religion were fully interwoven and practiced

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Speaker 3: by the same priests and authorities, and in fact, magic

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Speaker 3: power and magic spells were a fundamental part of the

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Speaker 3: regular public rights performed in Egyptian temples, So magic was

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Speaker 3: sort of part of everything, and even the gods needed it. Also,

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Speaker 3: we talked about how the Egyptian concept of magical power

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Speaker 3: or heca, was not thought to be inherently good or evil,

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Speaker 3: but was a morally neutral power that could be harnessed

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Speaker 3: to do all kinds of things, to protect or to harm,

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Speaker 3: to heal, or to destroy. And we talked about the

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Speaker 3: sometimes almost litigious or legal framing in which many ancient

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Speaker 3: Egyptians seemed to think about magic. Magic could be a

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Speaker 3: way of initiating supernatural legal proceedings. We also talked about

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Speaker 3: a few particular curse texts, a lot of great stuff

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Speaker 3: about you know, if you do something bad in this tomb,

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Speaker 3: going to wring your neck like a goose, all that stuff,

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Speaker 3: And we also talked in general about kind of the

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Speaker 3: main categories of curses that you find in ancient Egypt.

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Speaker 3: Of course, ancient Egypt spans thousands of years and many

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Speaker 3: millions of lives, so it's actually a quite varied historical

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Speaker 3: period to talk about. You can't capture everything just in

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Speaker 3: a little overview, But the main trends we talked about were,

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Speaker 3: first of all, personal curses. These would be the more

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Speaker 3: common kind of curses you would think about if you're

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Speaker 3: thinking in a you know, Christian witchcraft kind of framework.

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Speaker 3: These would be where people magically settled scores with enemies

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Speaker 3: and with people who they believed had wronged them or

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Speaker 3: were oppressing them. There were quite famously funerary curses, usually

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Speaker 3: leveled against anyone who would loot, to disturb or defile

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Speaker 3: a tomb. There were political curses performed as these execration

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Speaker 3: rituals to bind, weaken, and destroy enemies of the king

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Speaker 3: and of the state. So this could include you know,

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Speaker 3: rebels and the leaders of revolts, people the king perceived

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Speaker 3: as political traders, princes of enemy nations, and so forth.

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Speaker 3: I'll talk about an example of this in just a bit,

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Speaker 3: but you might write their name on a clay vessel

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Speaker 3: or otherwise somehow symbolically link them to an effigy and

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Speaker 3: then destroy that effigy to magically curse the person or

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Speaker 3: the parties. And then finally you would have these religious

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Speaker 3: or cosmic curses. This is very interesting because I don't know,

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Speaker 3: in the more modern religious context, we often think about

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Speaker 3: what happens with supernatural energies that's sort of beyond our intervention,

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Speaker 3: you know, we're subject to them, they're not subject to us.

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Speaker 3: But this, in fact, like we talked about last time,

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Speaker 3: was kind of like a curse.

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Speaker 4: The devil phenomenon.

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Speaker 3: Like in the Egyptian context, cosmic curses were designed to

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Speaker 3: sustain the balance of order in the world and to

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Speaker 3: magically help the gods of order defeat the bad gods,

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Speaker 3: you know, the forces of chaos, like the serpent, apep

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Speaker 3: or Apophice. And so we're back today to discuss more. Now, Rob,

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Speaker 3: let's see, we've got a couple of things we want

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Speaker 3: to get into today. We do want to talk us

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Speaker 3: in some more specifics about famous tomb curses or alleged

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Speaker 3: tomb curses. But before we do that, do you want

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Speaker 3: to talk about this idea of threats to the reader?

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this this You were talking a little bit

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Speaker 2: about this the other day, and of course it instantly

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Speaker 2: brought to mind things like the Ring.

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Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I.

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Speaker 2: Watch this video in your curse. Already watched the video.

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Speaker 2: There's no way on to do it. Yes, I'm excited

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Speaker 2: to hear.

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Speaker 3: More so, when you think about a magical text that

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Speaker 3: inflicts the curse, you usually think about a named or

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Speaker 3: specified target, right, For example, these personal curses that would

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Speaker 3: often be directed toward a specific person and rival oppressor.

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Speaker 3: Then you also have the cosmic, the religious curses we

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Speaker 3: talked about that were usually targeted at a named chaotic

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Speaker 3: deity again most often the serpent, apep or apophice. And

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Speaker 3: then you have these political curses that would certainly have

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Speaker 3: named enemies. In fact, sometimes the naming of enemies and

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Speaker 3: the political curses, that's like the majority of the text

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Speaker 3: we have, and that kind of makes sense with when

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Speaker 3: you imagine what the rituals were, right, like you'd write

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Speaker 3: the names on things and then destroy those things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And also to come back to something we talked about

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Speaker 2: with tomb facilities in particular, there was often a duality

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Speaker 2: to the statement. It would only be like fifty percent curse.

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Speaker 2: It would be like blessings upon you if you were here,

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Speaker 2: you know, with good intentions, but curses upon you if

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Speaker 2: you are here with bad intentions.

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Speaker 3: I want to get back to that in a minute,

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Speaker 3: because there are interesting parallel dualities also, But coming back

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Speaker 3: to the idea of political curses just briefly, because I

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Speaker 3: am thinking about these names versus unnamed targets of curses.

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Speaker 3: I found one pretty extensive translation of a particular political

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Speaker 3: curse and execration liturgy from the Middle Kingdom, and this

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Speaker 3: was translated by the American egyptologist John A. Wilson, who

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Speaker 3: was a professor at the University of Chicago. He lived

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Speaker 3: eighteen ninety nine to nineteen seventy six. So these texts

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Speaker 3: originally come from materials that were held by the Berlin Museum.

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Speaker 3: The translation appears in a book called the Ancient Near East,

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Speaker 3: an Anthology of Texts and Pictures, edited by Pritchard Princeton

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Speaker 3: University Press, originally published nineteen fifty eight. So the text

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Speaker 3: collection is called the Execration of Asiatic Princes, and in

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Speaker 3: this case that would refer to the rulers east of Egypt,

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Speaker 3: primarily rulers and peoples in the levant.

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Speaker 4: So again, the.

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Speaker 3: Way these execration rituals worked is that the names of

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Speaker 3: the political enemies of Egypt and the enemies of the king,

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Speaker 3: you'd like inscribe them on a piece of pottery, and

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Speaker 3: then the pottery would be smashed, And then there were

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Speaker 3: other ways of destroying effigies too, but that seems to

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Speaker 3: be the main thing we're talking about here, smashing of

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Speaker 3: these clay vessels, because the names had magical connections to

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Speaker 3: their owners. This smashing, along with the ritual language, was

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Speaker 3: thought to weaken and harm these enemy leaders. And so

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Speaker 3: the fragments name the rulers. But they don't just name

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Speaker 3: the rulers. They're like, here's the ruler, here's where they're from,

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Speaker 3: and then also make sure to get all their servants

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Speaker 3: and all their warriors, so you know, one example is

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Speaker 3: the ruler of enoch Roum and all the retainers who

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Speaker 3: are with him, the ruler of enoch Ahi Yamumu and

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Speaker 3: all the retainers who are with him, the ruler of

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Speaker 3: eanoch Akium and all the retainers who are with him,

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Speaker 3: the ruler of Shootou and goes on like this, and

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Speaker 3: all the retainers and all the warriors and all his

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Speaker 3: strong men who fight. And so there are many examples

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Speaker 3: in this text in the book here that are just

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Speaker 3: naming princes, all their retainers, all the people who would

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Speaker 3: serve them, and then of course they would smash that

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Speaker 3: to destroy and weaken those people. But in addition, the

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Speaker 3: political execration also extends to what feels like a more

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Speaker 3: prophylactic format when it starts cursing potential internal enemies from Egypt,

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Speaker 3: because there are fragments that specify all men, all people,

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Speaker 3: all folk, all males, all eunuchs, all women, all officials,

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Speaker 3: who may rebel, who may plot, who may fight, who

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Speaker 3: may talk of fighting, who may talk of rebelling, and

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Speaker 3: every rebel who talks of rebelling in this entire land.

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Speaker 2: But this seems like they've got everybody. I don't see

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Speaker 2: too many categories that were left out.

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Speaker 3: There, but it's funny that, Yeah, you would think not,

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Speaker 3: but there's some general cleanup after this.

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Speaker 4: They also just say.

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Speaker 3: Every evil word, every evil speech, every evil slander, every

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Speaker 3: evil thought, every evil plot, every evil fight, every evil quarrel,

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Speaker 3: every evil plan, evil thing, all evil dreams, and all

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Speaker 3: evil slumber.

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Speaker 2: Evil dreams. Can't help those come on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. But then

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Speaker 3: also there are some more texts that do name specific

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Speaker 3: traders and enemies within Egypt as well, Like there's this

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Speaker 3: one fragment that goes, AMENI shall die the tutor of

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Speaker 3: sit Bastet and the chancellor of sit hat Hoor, the

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Speaker 3: daughter of Nephru, and then just keeps naming people like that,

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Speaker 3: often like the tutors of women within the royal family.

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Speaker 3: There's a footnote that says, we don't know exactly what

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Speaker 3: this is about, but it seems like it could be

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Speaker 3: attacking traders who were thought to be part of a

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Speaker 3: Harem conspiracy. So once again here we get these specific

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Speaker 3: targets of the curse. But of course, not all curses

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Speaker 3: that appear in Egyptian texts are targeted at named enemies.

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Speaker 3: Some are more like a general security system that apply

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Speaker 3: to whom it may concern. And a big example here

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Speaker 3: that we've already talked about is tomb curses, often of

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Speaker 3: the format just generally I'm not quoting here, anyone who

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Speaker 3: enters this tomb with ill intent, or who steals from

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Speaker 3: or defaces this tomb will face penalties.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: A common one is I will be judged with him, meaning,

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Speaker 3: in your paraphrase from last time, Rob, I'll see you

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Speaker 3: in ghost chord, yeah, And then often having a more

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Speaker 3: violent or specific threat as well, like I shall wring

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Speaker 3: his neck like a goose.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which, as we discussed last time, may tie into

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Speaker 2: like the sacrificial killing of birds and temples. So again

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Speaker 2: that kind of blurring of the line that modern individuals

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Speaker 2: might think would exist between like the wizard and the priest.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's one text I just found in an older

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Speaker 3: book I found on the Gutenberg project that was a

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Speaker 3: collection of translated to inscriptions. This one was from a

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Speaker 3: tomb that in this it's translated Aqueja ichi Uh, and

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Speaker 3: it says it goes as follows the scribe in the

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Speaker 3: presence Ichi speaks with regard to any person who shall

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Speaker 3: take stones from this tomb of mine of the necropolis,

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Speaker 3: I shall be judged with them on this matter by

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Speaker 3: the God. Okay, there you go, we see you and goescort.

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Speaker 3: And then for I am an excellent ok who knows

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Speaker 3: his spells. So that's again like I've got the best

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Speaker 3: lawyers basically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I think in many cases the god

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Speaker 2: is going to be Osiris, or it could be a

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Speaker 2: regional deity.

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Speaker 3: A lot of these tombs that do make a threat,

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Speaker 3: they invoke the power of Osiris.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, so on the subject of curses that that

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Speaker 3: function less like a targeted attack and more like a

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Speaker 3: general purpose security system, and have this to whom it

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Speaker 3: may concern energy, I wanted to talk about an interesting

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Speaker 3: curse format that I first came across in an academic

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Speaker 3: conference presentation. The American egyptologist Robert K. Rittner who lived

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Speaker 3: nineteen fifty three to twenty twenty one. The presentation is

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Speaker 3: from two thousand and three, and it is called an

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Speaker 3: eternal curse upon the reader of these lines. So, as

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Speaker 3: you can guess from the title, this is an Egyptian

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Speaker 3: curse phenomenon that feels like you'd be very at home

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Speaker 3: in a horror movie. It is a text that curses

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Speaker 3: the reader for the crime of reading it, or, in

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Speaker 3: Writtner's words quote an invocation for divine wrath directed not

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Speaker 3: against its primary victims, who are later damned by name,

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Speaker 3: but against the accidental discoverer.

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Speaker 4: That's cold, and.

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Speaker 2: I'm assuming this would be in like the ForWord off

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Speaker 2: set text and not like the epilog.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because I have one full text that

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Speaker 3: I could read in a minute where it happens at

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Speaker 3: the very end.

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Speaker 2: What it's like.

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Speaker 3: By the way, if you read this, you also are cursed.

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Speaker 4: Oh man. Now, before I get to that, I do brieve.

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Speaker 3: Want to mention that the existence of this type of

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Speaker 3: curse is not the main point of Writtner's presentation, which

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Speaker 3: itself is pretty interesting, though a lot of it is

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Speaker 3: like linguistic stuff that was over my head, but it

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Speaker 3: is an interesting thing to read, so Writtener is more

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Speaker 3: focused on a few things. One is how this sort

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Speaker 3: of relates to stuff we talked about in Part one. Now,

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Speaker 3: the distinction between divine and demonic power in ancient Egyptian

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Speaker 3: religious thought is not all that distinct, and the categories

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Speaker 3: often overlap, with the same deities or entities often being

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Speaker 3: invoked as protectors and healers or as supernatural knife bearers

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Speaker 3: and slaughtering demons. A major part of the presentation is

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Speaker 3: this linguistic argument that again was over my head, but

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Speaker 3: it was focused on the definition of a particular Egyptian

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Speaker 3: word which appears in a lot of legal, medical, and

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Speaker 3: magical teess some religious texts. In basically here, which written

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Speaker 3: or argues should be understood as a kind of divine compulsion.

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Speaker 3: This word, he's arguing, means a kind of seizing by

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Speaker 3: a god or divine power and compelling action in a way.

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Speaker 3: And this could be good or evil, helpful or harmful,

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Speaker 3: but the force by which a god or demon seizes

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Speaker 3: a human and forces them to act one way or another.

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Speaker 3: This term often appears in what we think of as

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Speaker 3: tomb curses. So again, for example, the compulsion of Osiris

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Speaker 3: be on him who reads these words, his life will

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Speaker 3: be shortened. That sounds like standard curse stuff. You know

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Speaker 3: you are compulsion. You're seized by compulsion of a god,

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Speaker 3: and here's your punishment. But it is not only used

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Speaker 3: with the meaning that the intruder will be you know,

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Speaker 3: seized by supernatural compulsion to prevent them from harming the tomb.

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Speaker 3: There are also positive in vocations of this divine compulsion.

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Speaker 3: Two for example, say that the reader of an inscription

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Speaker 3: or the person entering a tomb will be compelled by

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Speaker 3: divine force to do something to honor the dead, like

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Speaker 3: make an offering of water, or to do something else

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Speaker 3: on the tomb owner's behalf. So I found that pretty interesting.

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Speaker 3: You would have these tomb inscriptions that say like, okay,

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Speaker 3: Osiris has seized you. You know, the god compels you.

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Speaker 3: Now it could be like get out of here, or

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Speaker 3: you will be killed. It could also be you will

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Speaker 3: make an offering to the you know, the soul of

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Speaker 3: the person buried here.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, that is fascinating. I'm sure Julian Jaye's devotees

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Speaker 2: have some fun with that. One, But in general, I

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Speaker 2: just I like the idea of that. It's like, it's

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Speaker 2: the positive side of that. It's like Osiris compels you here,

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Speaker 2: you need to do the right thing in here.

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Speaker 3: But coming to the reader directed curse, one of the

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Speaker 3: most striking examples mentioned in Writtner's introduction, I think is

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Speaker 3: actually doubly striking, not only because it has this dynamic

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Speaker 3: where it curses the reader for reading, but because though

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Speaker 3: it is ancient Egyptian, it comes from very late from

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Speaker 3: the Coptic Christian Egyptian period, and so it seems to

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Speaker 3: be basically a form of Christian in its theology. So

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Speaker 3: it is a targeted personal curse invoking divine violence from

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Speaker 3: the Christian God.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating.

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Speaker 3: So the one I wanted to mention is a Ecoptic

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Speaker 3: Egyptian curse known as Papyrus Lechechev. I think I'm saying

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Speaker 3: that right, that this is from the fourth or fifth century.

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Speaker 3: I went and dug up the full text, as translated

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Speaker 3: by a scholar named Marvin Meyer, from a book called

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Speaker 3: Ancient Christian Magic Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. This is

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Speaker 3: text number ninety in this book, and it's called Curse

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Speaker 3: against several violent people. Meyer summarizes it by saying, in

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Speaker 3: this papyrus, a victim similarly calls upon God in the

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Speaker 3: language of the courtroom, to bring judgment against several people

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Speaker 3: who have committed an act of violence. The closing lines

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Speaker 3: pronounce a curse upon anyone who opens and reads the papyrus.

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Speaker 3: So I'll give a few selections from the text, Lord,

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Speaker 3: my God, to whom I look, who is seated upon

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Speaker 3: the chariot of the Cherubim, with the Seraphim round about you,

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Speaker 3: who is mounted upon the four creatures Michael, Gabriel, the Archangel, Cherubim,

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Speaker 3: and Seraphim, Rabuel, Suruel, Cukuel, You who are seated upon

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Speaker 3: your throne and with your beloved son, along with all

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Speaker 3: those who have been named, and the place where this

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Speaker 3: will be deposited, and the Angel of the Church, You

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Speaker 3: must strike Pretasia and Tenunte and Ebenez quickly, deservedly. You

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Speaker 3: must hinder them as they have hindered him. You must

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Speaker 3: bring upon them the anger of your wrath and your

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Speaker 3: raised arm. As you cursed Samoa and Kimora through the

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Speaker 3: anger of your wrath. You must curse the one who

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Speaker 3: has committed this act of violence. You must bring the

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Speaker 3: vengeance of Enoch against them, as the blood of Abel

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Speaker 3: called out to Caine, his brother, the blood of this

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Speaker 3: miserable man will call out until you bring judgment on

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Speaker 3: his behalf against those who have committed this act of

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Speaker 3: violence against him. La loah, that is, Lord Sabba Oath.

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Speaker 3: You must bring your wrath upon them in a disturbing way.

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Speaker 3: You and who's in a disturbing way. You in whose

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Speaker 3: hands is every breath, who formed the world. You must

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Speaker 3: quickly overthrow the people who have committed this violence. Yeay,

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Speaker 3: Lord Saba Oath, you must bring judgment on his behalf quickly,

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Speaker 3: and then on the verso it has finally, whoever opens

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Speaker 3: this papyrus and reads it what is written on it

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Speaker 3: will come upon him by the order of the Lord God.

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Speaker 2: But of note, you did not open the papyrus. You

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Speaker 2: merely read a translation. So I think, I think legally

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Speaker 2: you're in the clear here. But I am no ancient

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Speaker 2: Egyptian priest or wizard or copying priest or wizard.

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Speaker 3: I mean so interesting, I wish I knew more about

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Speaker 3: the exact flavor of early Christianity that this is working from.

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Speaker 3: I don't know, actually, for sure, but this sounds to

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Speaker 3: me like it it could be Gnostic influenced. I don't

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Speaker 3: want to say that I know that because I didn't

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Speaker 3: have time to look into that, but I would love

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Speaker 3: to go back and dig into that and figure out

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Speaker 3: exactly what the underlying theology here is thought to be.

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Speaker 4: Though it is.

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Speaker 3: Clearly some kind of strongly Christian influenced theology, but it's

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Speaker 3: the kind of Christianity where the person thinks that they

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Speaker 3: can just say, God, I've somebody did something bad to me,

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Speaker 3: and God, I want you to go raise your arm

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Speaker 3: to them, destroy them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is really fascinating. I wish i'd known about

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Speaker 2: this in high school when I was like I went

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Speaker 2: through a phase where I was super into angels and

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Speaker 2: like reading about the different angel names and all. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: because this is loaded with that kind of thing. And

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Speaker 2: then it's interesting to think about this in terms of

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Speaker 2: stuff we've already talked about as sort of a legalistic argument,

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Speaker 2: because you can get us they're not directly invoking mot here,

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Speaker 2: but there's still a sense of it. There's sort of like, look,

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Speaker 2: I'm pointing to legal precedents to why you should act

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Speaker 2: in wrath against this individual or individuals, you know, So

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Speaker 2: it's it's not directly saying this is necessary for balance

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Speaker 2: and it goes beyond you, but it's pointing at legal precedents.

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Speaker 2: And it is also kind of interesting to think about

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Speaker 2: it in terms of how this is just like buttering

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Speaker 2: up a terrestrial ruler, you know, a powerful king and saying, hey,

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Speaker 2: you're pretty great. Look at all your power. A powerful

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Speaker 2: ruler like yourself should definitely act in this case and

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Speaker 2: do so in accordance with these legal presidents.

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Speaker 3: That's a really great point. Yes, it is bringing up

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Speaker 3: case law, and in that way, it does feel like

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Speaker 3: it's very much in the egypt magical curse tradition, even

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Speaker 3: though it is not with traditional Egyptian deities but with

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Speaker 3: Christian But it still has that Egyptian format, you know,

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Speaker 3: going back thousands of years. It like the way it

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Speaker 3: refers to other times God has cursed people for doing

434
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 3: bad things. Yeah, it's like remember when you did this,

435
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: It's like that time.

436
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 2: I wonder though, you know, thinking about mot again and

437
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 2: I would have to research deeper on this, but I

438
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 2: wonder if the Christian God that is that is being

439
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 2: invoked here, is there a sense that this deity is

440
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 2: at least to some degree detached from mot Is this

441
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 2: a move away from mot as as an essential religious

442
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 2: and cultural concept? I don't have an answer to that,

443
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 2: but you know, I can't help but wonder about it

444
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 2: as we look at this text.

445
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 3: So obviously, this particular text is different from a lot

446
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 3: of the things we've been talking about for numerous reasons,

447
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 3: one of the big ones being that it's in this

448
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 3: Christian context. But you could look at these earlier texts

449
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 3: as well and ask the general question, why curse the

450
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 3: reader for reading? What is the point of doing that?

451
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 3: You know, the reader is not the person you're mad

452
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 3: at when you're writing out this curse, So why just

453
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 3: include a line that's like, by the way, if you

454
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 3: read this, everything I said applies to you as well. Yeah,

455
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 3: in the tomb, cursing the reader kind of makes sense

456
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 3: because it's not so much about the reading. I mean,

457
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 3: what's really being protected is the tomb. It's just logical

458
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,959
Speaker 3: that if you're reading this in this place, you're probably

459
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 3: doing something I don't want you to, or you might

460
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 3: be ready about to do something I don't want you to.

461
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 3: So therefore it stands to reason that if you're reading

462
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 3: this a threat should be applied to you.

463
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 4: But does that.

464
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 3: Really make sense with you know, magical papyri, a spell

465
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 3: written on papyrus, Like, why would you put a curse

466
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 3: on just a text? I think we we don't actually

467
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 3: know for sure, but there are some ideas. So I

468
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 3: think one idea is it may serve to protect the

469
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 3: effectiveness of the curse, perhaps by protecting the curse's ritual purity,

470
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 3: you know, so, like the curse is something that is

471
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 3: between the person issuing the curse and the deity that's

472
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 3: being invoked. And if you're just getting other random parties involved,

473
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 3: you know, random people coming in and reading this who

474
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 3: aren't supposed to be, they might kind of be interrupting

475
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 3: that relationship.

476
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 4: It's just bungling.

477
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:37,479
Speaker 2: Security of the signal or something, you know.

478
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, And or also preventing the bungling interference from readers

479
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: who don't know what they're doing and might be using

480
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 3: the power of the curse in some way for themselves,

481
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 3: because a common strain of thought in ancient Egypt is

482
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 3: that words themselves have magic power. Writing kind of has

483
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 3: a heca of its own, and so the act of

484
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 3: writing something has magic power, and the act of reading

485
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 3: something has magic power. This is something written or actually

486
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,479
Speaker 3: does talk about more in the in the context of

487
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 3: his you know, his the compulsion which can work either way,

488
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:17,159
Speaker 3: which can compel you to do things. I think his

489
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 3: idea is that the act of reading turns on the

490
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:25,479
Speaker 3: divine compulsion feature. It can activate the magic power of

491
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 3: the words therein, and so both writing and reading sort

492
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 3: of like turn the machine on.

493
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 2: If that makes sense, Yeah, I mean I think it

494
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: more than makes sense. I think most of us can

495
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 2: relate to it on some level or another, just in

496
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 2: terms of daily reading and writing. But man, I was

497
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: just just the other day I was looking at it

498
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 2: yet another anxiety tweaking exercise that involves writing, that involves

499
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 2: like writing out you know, particular thoughts, particular triggers and

500
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,360
Speaker 2: so forth, and you know, in doing so, gaining distance

501
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 2: from them, sort of being able to manipulate their power.

502
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 2: And there are any number of examples like that inside

503
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 2: and outside of therapy that basically utilized the power of

504
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 2: human language. I mean, in talking about magic again, I've

505
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 2: heard it put before that magic is making the world

506
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 2: conform to language. You know, and you know, to a

507
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 2: certain extent, you don't have to believe in magic to

508
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 2: see that happen.

509
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 4: I think that's an excellent point.

510
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, So a big idea is that cursing the reader

511
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 3: could be about protecting the effectiveness the efficacy of the spell.

512
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 4: But another thing might.

513
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 3: Just be about secrecy. And you could think about secrecy

514
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: for multiple directions.

515
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 4: I mean, you might be thinking about the.

516
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 3: Personal privacy concerns or the secrecy of the person invoking

517
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 3: the curse. Maybe in some kind of papyri, you wouldn't

518
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 3: really want your neighbors to know exactly what you're doing.

519
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 3: I don't know that's a possibility, I think.

520
00:28:58,120 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 4: But another way of.

521
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 3: Thinking about secrecy is more about protecting. It's sort of

522
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 3: like locking up the weapons. You know, there's a secrecy

523
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 3: element because a curse, the language of a curse is

524
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 3: a mimetic weapon. It's like information that can be used

525
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 3: to harm, just in the way you were talking about

526
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 3: the words have magical power to harm. By placing a

527
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 3: seal on a papyrus that has the power to curse,

528
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,719
Speaker 3: you are essentially practicing proper security with something that is

529
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 3: inherently dangerous.

530
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 2: M Yeah, and I wonder too like this we're kind

531
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 2: of we're experienced we're talking about this as outsiders who

532
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 2: are like, whoa, this is a papyrus was cursed. But

533
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 2: I'm wondering too if this would have been just a

534
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 2: known fact about it, like, oh, that is a curse scroll.

535
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: You know, not to read that because if you're not

536
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: the intended user there could be harmful ramifications.

537
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's a really good point.

538
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 3: I mean, this is something I think that often gets

539
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 3: lost ancient texts because they come to us as text.

540
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 3: You know, we read a translation of a text in

541
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 3: a book, and so it's just the information component the

542
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 3: text taken out of its context. But the context is

543
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 3: a physical surrounding the substrate that it's printed on, what

544
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 3: it looks like, what kind of object it was, where

545
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 3: it was, and things like that that all also contain information,

546
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 3: just in the way you think about anything that's written

547
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 3: in your world. You know, a street sign has a

548
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 3: different way you understand it than a page in a book,

549
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 3: and a page in a book can mean something very

550
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 3: different if it's like an instruction manual versus a novel

551
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 3: or work, you know, and so so many things that

552
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 3: are not stated within the text itself inform how we

553
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 3: understand a text and a lot of times that is

554
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 3: just totally lost when you you know, when it's taken

555
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 3: out of its original cultural context and just presented as

556
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 3: a translation in a book.

557
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, this is this is this is fascinating.

558
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: Reminds me many years ago, I was inadvertently sent an

559
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 2: email through work, and then after I received it, someone

560
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 2: reached out and was like, hey, you weren't supposed to

561
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 2: get that. There's an attachment in that email. Don't open it,

562
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 2: just to lead it unseen. So similar, similar vibe. You know,

563
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 2: they didn't threaten to curse me. But I was like,

564
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 2: all right, all right, I'm sure I don't really want

565
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 2: to look at a you know, a spreadsheet of numbers

566
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 2: I don't understand. So I'm perfectly fine, perfectly happy to

567
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 2: do that. And then I guess in another sense, we

568
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 2: receive emails all the time that we know are cursed,

569
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 2: that have cursed attachments, and we have to dismiss them

570
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 2: out of hand.

571
00:31:41,280 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 5: Yeah, talk about information threat Yeah.

572
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 3: All right, Well that's all I've got for now on

573
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 3: reader curses. But Rob, I know you wanted to talk

574
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 3: about the so called curse of the Pharaohs. What have

575
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 3: you got on that?

576
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is inevitably the place

577
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 2: to take this because we have this, we have to

578
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 2: stress this a very twentieth century conception of a pharaoh's

579
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 2: curse that still remains pretty pervasive in the public mindset,

580
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 2: and it emerges pretty much entirely in the wake of

581
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenty two discovery of tuton Common's tomb in

582
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 2: the Valley of the Kings by archaeologist Howard Carter, who

583
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 2: lived eighteen seventy four through nineteen thirty nine and his financier,

584
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 2: Lord Carnivon. This was also known as George Herbert, the

585
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 2: fifth Earl of Carnivon. He lived eighteen sixty six through

586
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty three. Of note twenty three, that's one year

587
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 2: after the discovery of the tomb. We'll come back to that.

588
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 4: Oh, obviously the tomb got him.

589
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just logic's yeah, that's where it's going to refresh.

590
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 2: Tuton Common from roughly thirteen thirty four through thirteen twenty

591
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 2: five BCE. He only lived to the age of eighteen

592
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 2: or nineteen, though became pharaoh at age eight or nine,

593
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 2: so sometimes looking at his age you can think, well,

594
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 2: he wasn't that must have been a very short reign,

595
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 2: couldn't have done much. But you know, when you consider

596
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 2: that he became pharaoh at age eight or nine, you know,

597
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 2: is a lengthy enough rain to do a lot of things. Still,

598
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 2: there does seem to be the indication that his death,

599
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 2: you know, he died very young, and it was to

600
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 2: some degree unexpected. So this would have been towards the

601
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 2: end of the New Kingdom's eighteenth dynasty. And one thing

602
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 2: to remember about King Tut's tomb is that it did

603
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 2: not lay completely undisturbed for the entirety of its history.

604
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 2: It was robbed twice within just a few years of Tuts.

605
00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 2: Burial repairs and restocking took place, but for one or

606
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 2: two possible reasons, the entrance to King Tut's tomb in

607
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 2: the Valley of the Kings became obscured, possibly due to

608
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 2: silty deposits brought on by flooding. Not everyone agrees on

609
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 2: this count, and due to subsequent tomb construction, this one

610
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 2: is more definite. This meaning that means mounds of debris

611
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 2: workmen's huts being built in the Valley of the Kings

612
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: to facilitate other tomb facilities, and it just becomes lost right.

613
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 3: So King Tut's tomb was not completely undisturbed, but it

614
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 3: was less disturbed than most other tombs from ancient Egypt.

615
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for a considerable amount of time. Yeah so,

616
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: And this is during a time when tomb raiders are

617
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 2: just going to continue to plague the Valley of the Kings.

618
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 2: It's my understanding that the Valley of the Kings was

619
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 2: established as a way to better protect the tombs. But

620
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 2: how are you going to provide protection, you know, across millennia. Yeah,

621
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 2: becomes difficult. But the tomb of Tuton, common itself small

622
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 2: and less extensively decorated than other Egyptian royal tombs of

623
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 2: its time, likely adapted from a non royal tomb so

624
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 2: as to provide space for Tut in the aftermath of

625
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 2: his sudden death. It ends up again being remained, ends

626
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:17,399
Speaker 2: up remaining undisturbed for thousands of years, and then during

627
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:21,320
Speaker 2: the boom of nineteenth and twentieth century Egyptology, the Valley

628
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 2: of the Kings receives a great deal of renewed scrutiny

629
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 2: from Europeans, and objects related to Tut were discovered in

630
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 2: the area, and this eventually led to the rediscovery of

631
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 2: the tomb itself, the contents of which exceeded all expectations.

632
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 2: It took multiple seasons to remove all the materials inside,

633
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 2: and it is largely considered the most important archaeological find

634
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 2: of the twentieth century. It's the only nearly intact royal

635
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,720
Speaker 2: burial site ever found in ancient Egypt, and it provided

636
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 2: both a time capsule of the new kingdom and the

637
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 2: glimpse into the daily life of many ancient Egyptians. So

638
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 2: it's kind of hard to overstate the important ardents of

639
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 2: King Tut's tomb, which at times it can almost be

640
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 2: counterintuitive because such a big deal was made out of it.

641
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 2: You know, it was huge news, and a big deal

642
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 2: continues to be made out of it. You know, the

643
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 2: the the materials from this discovery of still tour around

644
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:21,240
Speaker 2: the world. You know, King Tut inspires his own brand

645
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 2: of Egyptomania. So but we have to remind us that

646
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, this was a huge deal and we

647
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 2: learned and are still continuing to learn so much from it.

648
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 2: And at the time too, it was huge. The discovery

649
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 2: made international news. It was you know, bona fide international sensation.

650
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 2: We've discussed Egypt Domania on the show before. There have

651
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 2: been multiple waves of egypt Domania throughout history, you know,

652
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: fascination with the look of Egyptian artifacts, the mysteries and

653
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 2: the about how these people lived and so forth. And

654
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,280
Speaker 2: it goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, Romans,

655
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,439
Speaker 2: and Hebrews. But this is discovery of King Tut's tomb

656
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 2: kicked off. Yeah, this this kind of like new wave

657
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 2: that is sometimes referred to as Tutmania. I may accidentally

658
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 2: say Tutamania, but it is Tutmania that's as official as

659
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 2: a word like Tutmania can be. Okay, And a book

660
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,720
Speaker 2: that I've referred back to before about Egypt Domania, titled

661
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 2: egypt Domania by Ronald H. Fritz, points out that Tutomania

662
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,320
Speaker 2: didn't just or Tutmania, sorry, didn't just make one splash,

663
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 2: but continued to resonate. As again, these artifacts from the

664
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 2: tomb go on various world tours. I mean, I think

665
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: a lot of us can can think to examples in

666
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 2: our own life where oh, the King tut artifacts came

667
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 2: to a large city that your family could drive to,

668
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 2: and yeah, I remember going to it, I remember becoming

669
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 2: interested in it buying a soundtrack of Egyptian or supposedly

670
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 2: ancient Egyptian music, and you know it probably it's probably

671
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 2: one of the reasons that I'm here on a podcast

672
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 2: dot about ancient Egypt today.

673
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 4: Well.

674
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, as with many things in the world, how to

675
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 3: put this, we should not hold it against King Tut

676
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 3: or any of his associated artifacts. That much of the

677
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 3: reaction or reception of him was cringe like makes King

678
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 3: Tut himself and the artifacts no less interesting.

679
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:26,240
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, so of course, again, Egyptomania was already

680
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 2: influencing our media well before the nineteen twenty two Tut

681
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 2: find again situating this within the nineteenth and twentieth century

682
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 2: Egyptomania and slash Egyptology boom. So yeah. At this point

683
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 2: we already had what was considered has been considered the

684
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 2: first mummy film, nineteen eleven's The Mummy, in which a

685
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 2: scientist revives an ancient Egyptian mummy with electricity and then

686
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 2: falls in love with her.

687
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 4: Was it.

688
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is sadly a lost film, but seems to

689
00:38:57,760 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 2: have existed.

690
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 4: I did not know.

691
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 3: The first mummy film was basically Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein.

692
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean clearly influenced by it, let's see.

693
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 2: And then we had literary works from the likes of

694
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 2: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He wrote an eighteen ninety story

695
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 2: called The Ring of Thoth and eighteen ninety two's Lot

696
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 2: Number two forty nine. That one, of course, was adapted

697
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,720
Speaker 2: in the motion picture Tales from the Dark Side the movie.

698
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how accurately, but it is cited as

699
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 2: the reference.

700
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 3: The one that's the segment with Christian Slater.

701
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think Steep, you send me in that

702
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 2: one as well. I need to see it again. I

703
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 2: remember liking it quite a bit.

704
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.

705
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,760
Speaker 2: And then also we had Bram Stoker nineteen oh three's

706
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: The Jewel of the Seven Stars, and Fritz in his

707
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 2: work also singles out the eighteen twenty seven Jane C.

708
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 2: Loudon book The Mummy That's with an exclamation point and

709
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 2: then a colon or A Tale of the twenty second

710
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 2: Century points this out as the earliest long work about

711
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 2: reanimated mummy. Edgar Allan Poe also wrote an eighteen forty

712
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 2: five story titled Some Words with a Mummy. I haven't

713
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:08,959
Speaker 2: read this one either.

714
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 4: What were the words?

715
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 2: I mean some words, let's see. But again, nineteen twenty

716
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 2: two's discovery Tutmania certainly influenced everything. This is, you know,

717
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 2: one of the prime reasons we ended up with the

718
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:31,839
Speaker 2: universal horror picture from nineteen thirty two, The Mummy, absolutely

719
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 2: inspired by the discovery of King Tut's tomb and an

720
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 2: attempt to capitalize on it. Really kind of Mummy's spoitation,

721
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 2: if you will.

722
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 4: Yes, like this is educational.

723
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, And of note, we already had ancient Egyptian curse

724
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,800
Speaker 2: fiction before nineteen twenty two, So one of the best

725
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,880
Speaker 2: examples that's frequently cited is Lost in a Pyramid or

726
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 2: The Mummy's Curse by Luisa may Alcott. This was from

727
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty nine. So we had these ideas already in

728
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 2: our fiction, in our dream making, due to fascination with

729
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:10,359
Speaker 2: actual and interpreted tomb curses from ancient Egypt as well

730
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 2: as from other cultures. And we've talked about these in

731
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 2: the show as well, from Greek culture, from Roman Roman culture,

732
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 2: and from various Mesopotamian cultures.

733
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 3: Right, So I think Rob, would you agree that while

734
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 3: ancient Egyptian tomb curses absolutely were a real phenomenon and

735
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 3: there are plenty of examples of this. A lot of

736
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 3: what people think about tomb curses comes from the fiction

737
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 3: that is only loosely inspired by them, not by the

738
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 3: knowledge of what these curses were like themselves.

739
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,280
Speaker 2: Right right, as well as urban legends. According to Fritz,

740
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 2: two tales of cursed mummies were popular bits of Victorian

741
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 2: and Edwardian urban legend, again tying into in this case

742
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 2: tying into general fascination with occultism and spiritualism that were

743
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 2: also just a part of the public zifeist But this

744
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 2: post tut idea of the curse of the Pharaoh really

745
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 2: cooks into gear during first wave Tutmania. As again Expedition finance. Here,

746
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 2: Lord Carnarvan dies a few months after the tombs opening

747
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 2: due to and we're very clear on this uninfected mosquito bite.

748
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 2: So essentially, Lord Carnarvan here, already in not great health,

749
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 2: apparently nicked a mosquito bite on it while shaving, and

750
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:34,880
Speaker 2: this bite slash wound became infected. He refused to rest

751
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 2: to care for himself properly, and subsequently died. According to Fritz,

752
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 2: this also occurred after some ups and downs in the

753
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 2: following weeks, so not. I mean sudden in many cases,

754
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,720
Speaker 2: in many ways of thinking, but maybe not as sudden

755
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 2: as invocations of a curse might make you think.

756
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 3: Now, I know a lot of people might be thinking.

757
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 3: The next place this discussion would go would be, was

758
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:01,719
Speaker 3: it really the curse in King Tut's tomb that got him?

759
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 3: You know, did that influence the infected wound or was

760
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 3: it not? But actually there isn't even a curse in

761
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 3: King Tut's tomb? Am I correct about that?

762
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 2: That is correct? Yeah?

763
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there is no curse to even question here.

764
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a fact. There are no explicit curse

765
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: threats of immediate death in or on Tut's tomb. But

766
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 2: that didn't stop the media. You know, the media is

767
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 2: resi sensationalist about this, and we're pretty quick to declare

768
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 2: that he had clearly been struck dead by mysterious forces

769
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,359
Speaker 2: aligned with the curse protection of the tomb. The New

770
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 2: York Times even reported this is like an actual quote

771
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 2: from The Times in twenty three Canarvan's death spreads theories

772
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 2: about vengeance? I mean, you know, that's not too terrible

773
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 2: a journalistic headline. They're not saying he was definitely cursed

774
00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 2: they're saying people are talking about.

775
00:43:58,600 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 4: It fair enough.

776
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 3: I guess with stories like that, you know, the people

777
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 3: are talking about X stories.

778
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 4: The question is always like, are.

779
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 3: People really talking about this enough that it's worth reporting on?

780
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 3: Or is it like this is just something that would

781
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 3: be interesting to talk about and a few people are

782
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 3: saying it, so let's just let's just talk about it.

783
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 4: Yeah.

784
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 2: I find it especially maddening these days, where this form

785
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 2: of article might include embedded Twitter tweets or whatever they're

786
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 2: called these days. It's like, yeah, are we really tapping

787
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 2: into the public mindset? Maybe we are, but I don't know.

788
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm just an old fogy, but it seems stupid

789
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 2: to me. You.

790
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 3: I mean, for any ridiculous or horrible idea, you can

791
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 3: find people saying it. So it's the fact that people

792
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 3: are saying something worth reporting. I mean, I'm not saying

793
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 3: it's never worth reporting. If a whole lot of people

794
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 3: are saying something, I guess it's worth reporting on the

795
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 3: phenomenon of a rumor because that is news. But I

796
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 3: don't know, I guess I don't know, Like the what

797
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 3: is the tipping point? Like what is the critical threshold

798
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 3: of organic conversation? About something that it becomes worth reporting

799
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 3: in a news source.

800
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, but at any rate, it was more than just

801
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 2: the Times talking about it and in general, like mummy

802
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,439
Speaker 2: curse may was spreading is covered in the j Store

803
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 2: Daily article Was it really a Mummy's Curse? By Alison C.

804
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: Meyer from twenty nineteen. You had just decades of writers

805
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 2: who were eager to attribute any death of any halfway

806
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 2: connected individual to the supposed curse. So just a few

807
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 2: examples of this. Sir Bruce Ingham not even part of

808
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 2: the team that opened the tomb, but he accepted a

809
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 2: mummy's hand paperweight from Howard Carter and then his house

810
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 2: burned down. So people are like, was this the curse? Like, well,

811
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: it seems a few steps removed, but I guess you

812
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 2: could make the case for it. Another one, American financier

813
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 2: George J. Gould, contracted new ammonia apparently after after visiting

814
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 2: the tomb. Was this the curse as well? I mean

815
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: a lot of things are going to happen to you

816
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 2: after you visit any given place. You know. Again, this

817
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 2: just gets into magical thinking and all and ideas of

818
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 2: bad luck and bad omens. You did that one thing

819
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 2: that may or may not have any sort of moral

820
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 2: weight to it. And then later on you wonder if

821
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 2: these two things are connected. Yeah, oh, and then this

822
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 2: one's really good. In nineteen seventy, nineteen seventy, again, an

823
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 2: alleged expedition member, so I'm not even sure this was

824
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 2: someone that was proven to have actually been there, was

825
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 2: injured in a traffic accident, and the London Time, Yeah,

826
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 2: in the London Times apparently was not too shy to

827
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: suggest that maybe it's a curse. If so, I would

828
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 2: say that curse had been read too much and was

829
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 2: a little weak. If it just causes a traffic accident

830
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:00,800
Speaker 2: decades later, and again not a fatal one.

831
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 3: And again we already said this, but there was no curse, right,

832
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 3: We're not saying there wasn't magic. There wasn't even a suggestion.

833
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:12,399
Speaker 4: Of magic, right right.

834
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:17,480
Speaker 2: The suggestion emerges completely from sensationalist news, and then you know,

835
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,439
Speaker 2: and is tied into fiction and so forth. In two

836
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 2: thousand and two, epidemiologist Mark R. Nelson published The Mummy's

837
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 2: Curse Historical Cohort Study in the British Medical Journal, And

838
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:32,399
Speaker 2: this is worth looking up. He does a great job

839
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 2: breaking it all down. He points out, Okay, forty four

840
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 2: Westerners were present at the opening of the tomb. Twenty

841
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 2: five of them you could say were exposed. So I

842
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 2: guess actually entered the tomb as part of the work,

843
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 2: and based on this information he broke it down. I'll

844
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 2: get into some of the ways it's broken down here.

845
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 2: You know. He found that there was no evidence of

846
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 2: any kind of a direct curse, and that there was

847
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 2: no effect on survival time for any exposure or numbers

848
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 2: of exposures, because remember some people only when in once

849
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,919
Speaker 2: other people are going in and out. Work continued there

850
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 2: for multiple seasons. Fritz covers this in Egyptomania as well.

851
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:12,439
Speaker 2: And yes, just this idea of the curse doesn't hold

852
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 2: up to any amount of scrutiny of the twenty five

853
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 2: sometimes I've read twenty six. You know, basically, around twenty

854
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 2: five people present at the opening of the tomb, twenty

855
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 2: of them were still alive more than a decade later.

856
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:28,280
Speaker 2: Fritz rights, obviously, the curse was not operating comprehensively against

857
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 2: supposed desecrators of tuten Common's tomb, and of the six

858
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 2: who had died, most had died of old age. But

859
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 2: clearly the idea was just simply too enticing, the idea

860
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 2: of an ancient mummy's curses, as multiple writers have pointed out,

861
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 2: they just have too many cool factors here, the idea

862
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 2: of ancient curses again, even though there's not one in

863
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 2: this particular case, but just the general idea of them,

864
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 2: just a sensational and legitimately important archaeological find mummies distant lands.

865
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 2: They're just it's just too much. People couldn't help themselves.

866
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 2: And I think it's one of the interesting things about

867
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 2: Egyptomania in general. It's it's a broad tint that thankfully

868
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 2: contains and leads to a great deal of serious Egyptology

869
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 2: and like serious interest in ancient Egyptian topics and also

870
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 2: you know, ultimately contemporary Egyptian topics. But it also includes

871
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 2: all manner of fiction, fantasy, superstition, pseudohistory, pseudo archaeology, conspiracy thinking,

872
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 2: new religious thought. You know, not all of that is bad,

873
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 2: but some of it can be, at least if it's

874
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 2: then if there's too much of it at any rate.

875
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 2: The idea of the curse of the Pharaohs continued, with

876
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 2: various ideas often brought up as to just why the

877
00:49:54,840 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 2: ancient Egyptian tombs killed people. Again, they didn't. But the again,

878
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 2: we're talking about this pervasive myth, this pervasive idea.

879
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 3: Right, We're talking about explanations that were offered for a

880
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 3: phenomenon that was actually not anything other than what you

881
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 3: would expect from chance.

882
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 4: Right.

883
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 2: One of the most common is just, oh, there's a

884
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 2: cursed tablet. And again, in many of these cases, there's

885
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 2: no cursed tablet or thing that end. You end up

886
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,840
Speaker 2: having some sort of story about a particular item being cursed,

887
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 2: even though there's nothing archaeological or even like subjectively threatening

888
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 2: about it. Colleen Darnel brought this up in her talk.

889
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 2: You know, there are certain Egyptian items that there's like

890
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:42,479
Speaker 2: a legacy of superstition about them, but they're not even

891
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 2: like threatening looking or anything. It's just they're pretty common.

892
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 2: But once you get this idea attached to them, it's

893
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:50,880
Speaker 2: hard to shake. Oh, here's one. This was a Daily

894
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 2: Mail consideration. What if the mosquito that bit Lord Carnavon

895
00:50:54,920 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 2: had filled up on poisonous embalming fluid. First, I mean,

896
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 2: I guess it's an interesting idea, but I don't think

897
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 2: there's any reason to back this up.

898
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 4: Wait.

899
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 3: Wait, the lethal dose of poisonous embalming fluid didn't kill

900
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 3: the mosquito, but it did kill the man that the

901
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 3: mosquito bit.

902
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then how did it get it? The mosquitoes

903
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,839
Speaker 2: are not gonna they're not going to feed on an

904
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 2: ancient mummy. And there are just too many problems. But

905
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 2: there's so many holes in this one. But it's so ridiculous.

906
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 2: I had to mention, let's see trap toxins in the tomb.

907
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:37,320
Speaker 2: This is another idea that's often brought up. And this idea,

908
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 2: I have to admit, smacks a bit of miasthma theory,

909
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 2: you know, trapped bad air. But you know, there is

910
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 2: maybe a little more certainly more to this idea than

911
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 2: there is too deadly embalming fluid mosquitoes. You know, the

912
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 2: air inside a tomb may well be stale, could be

913
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 2: low oxygen in high CO two. So you could make

914
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 2: a case with some tombs for methane and hydrogen sulfide.

915
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 2: But in general, these are just hypotheticals and there's no

916
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 2: proof that anything like this has been connected with actual

917
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 2: tombs in their openings or with human illnesses due to

918
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 2: their opening. Kind of coming back to the mosquito theory,

919
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:22,279
Speaker 2: Chemicals from mummification processes are sometimes brought up, but this

920
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be a strong short term concern. Let's see.

921
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 2: They're also highly speculative ideas concerning radon gas in certain tombs.

922
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 2: But one of the more interesting ones is the idea, Okay,

923
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 2: how about toxic mold essentially toxic fungal spores released in

924
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 2: a tomb's opening. This hypothesis is true. Just leaning into

925
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 2: it for a moment. The idea is that, okay, maybe

926
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:54,879
Speaker 2: this exasperated the case of Lord Carnarvon, that just you know, like, okay,

927
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:57,319
Speaker 2: he was already sick. You know, he's going to end

928
00:52:57,400 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 2: up with this cut on his face, it gets infected.

929
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 2: But what if on top of that we also had

930
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 2: toxic spores. I don't know, I don't think. It doesn't

931
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:08,360
Speaker 2: seem like it's a very strong argument for a couple

932
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 2: of reasons, but it does lead to a very interesting

933
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 2: case from outside of Egypt that does involve his actual phenomenon.

934
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 3: At least as a possibility that's taken seriously. Right, So well,

935
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 3: let's talk about that example. Because I didn't know about

936
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 3: this before you mentioned it to me, and this one

937
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 3: is really interesting.

938
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not know about this one either until

939
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:32,800
Speaker 2: I took Colleen Darnell's class and the Curse of the Pharaohs.

940
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 2: She brought it up, and Yeah, I was instantly fascinated.

941
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 2: Again Colleen Darnell, the Egyptologist. Go visit her website. She

942
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 2: does these classes online all the time. They're very cost

943
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:48,359
Speaker 2: effective and they're a lot of fun. But yeah, this

944
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 2: is so again stressing that the Pharaohs curse is very

945
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:53,760
Speaker 2: much a twentieth century myth, but a persistent one stirred

946
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 2: on by fiction and sensationalism. But this one idea that

947
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 2: we've touched on that opening a tomb could in effect

948
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 2: relief said death curse in the form of a deadly

949
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:06,399
Speaker 2: pathogen is not entirely crazy, because we have one case

950
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 2: where it may have happened. So this takes us outside

951
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 2: of Egypt, this Texas to Krakau, Poland, and it concerns

952
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy three opening of the tomb of Casimir

953
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 2: the fourth Jagolan, and apparently opening this tomb did release

954
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 2: fungal spores of Aspergilius flavas, which was discovered in large

955
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 2: amounts in this tomb, and it may have ultimately killed

956
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 2: as many as ten conservationists that had opened and worked

957
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,359
Speaker 2: in the tomb, and done so within a year's time.

958
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:42,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, So from what I understand, the many people who

959
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 3: did work on this opened tomb did soon die afterwards,

960
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 3: and there were many spores of Aspergillus. This Aspergillus species

961
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 3: found there, and specifically the culprit was thought to be

962
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 3: what are called aflatoxins A. This is a variet of

963
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 3: poisonous fungal toxin or micotoxin produced by different molds and

964
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 3: fungal species, but especially Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus mycotoxicosis,

965
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 3: meaning you know, acute high fungal toxin exposure. This from

966
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:23,800
Speaker 3: aflatoxin exposure can have a number of serious negative health effects,

967
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 3: both long term and short term. It seems most importantly

968
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:32,239
Speaker 3: by attacking the liver, potentially causing hepatitis and greatly increasing

969
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 3: the risk of liver cancer. I've read that aflatoxins are

970
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 3: one of the most potent carcinogens known of in nature,

971
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 3: so they attack the liver and with serious enough exposure,

972
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:52,280
Speaker 3: it's aflatoxins can cause acute death, cause acute organ failure,

973
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 3: especially with the liver and death and more moderate rates

974
00:55:56,840 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 3: of exposure have potentially been linked to all kinds of

975
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 3: other problems, including growth, stunting, and children. Though most of

976
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:11,080
Speaker 3: the concern about aflatoxin exposure comes not from opening tombs,

977
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 3: but from exposure through contaminated food crops. So like contaminated

978
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 3: nuts or grains or other food crops that are stored

979
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 3: in like warm humid conditions can develop aflatoxin contamination through

980
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 3: a bunch of Aspergillus in them, and this can be

981
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 3: really really bad to eat. In fact, aflatoxins I believe

982
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 3: were first discovered in the nineteen sixties and this was

983
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 3: linked to this famous case of the so called turkey

984
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:44,720
Speaker 3: X disease among not the country turkey, but the animal

985
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:48,640
Speaker 3: turkeys in England where I was looking at. A study

986
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 3: that mentions this called aflatoxins history, significant milestones, recent data

987
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 3: on their toxicity and ways to mitigation in the journal

988
00:56:58,200 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 3: Toxins from twenty.

989
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:00,080
Speaker 4: Twenty one by p.

990
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:04,680
Speaker 3: Cova at All and in this overview they describe as

991
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:09,040
Speaker 3: follows quote. In the late nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties,

992
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 3: a new, so far unknown turkey disease characterized by heavy

993
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 3: mortality was identified in England after the Turkey disease outbreak

994
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 3: of unknown nature and ideology, the Turkey so called X disease,

995
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:26,240
Speaker 3: the discovery of aflatoxins began. A total of one hundred

996
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:29,919
Speaker 3: thousand turkeys died of so called Turkey X disease after

997
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 3: being fed with contaminated Brazilian ground nut meal on a

998
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 3: poultry farm in London. Though of course it has only

999
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:39,880
Speaker 3: affected turkeys, lots of humans around the world. There have

1000
00:57:39,880 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 3: been aflatoxin breakouts in food crops around the world and

1001
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 3: many people have died as well. So this is like

1002
00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 3: a serious, very potent toxin, but usually the risk is

1003
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 3: improperly stored food or contaminated food, not again, not tombs.

1004
00:57:57,960 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 3: But of course if there were a whole lot of

1005
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:04,920
Speaker 3: aflotoxin from a strongly Aspergillus contaminated tomb, you could imagine

1006
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 3: that also being a serious health risk to people who

1007
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:09,439
Speaker 3: were messing around in there.

1008
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah and again again why this fund

1009
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:19,320
Speaker 2: is widely distributed in soil across the globe sometimes colonizes

1010
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 2: important agricultural crops, but is not something that's like only

1011
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 2: found in tombs. And in fact this is like this

1012
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 2: is the case of this occurring. I don't believe this

1013
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 2: to be a widespread phenomenon. Oh a little background though,

1014
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 2: I want to throw in Kasimir the fourth Yagalan who

1015
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 2: was he? While he was a fifteenth century Polish king

1016
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:41,360
Speaker 2: and Lithuanian Grand Duke, an important European ruler of the day,

1017
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,960
Speaker 2: noted for his defeat of the Teutonic Knights during the

1018
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 2: Thirteen Years War the fifteenth century. None of this business

1019
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:51,600
Speaker 2: with his tomb reflects on anything good or bad about

1020
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,480
Speaker 2: his life or rule. And to be clear, there was

1021
00:58:54,560 --> 00:59:01,280
Speaker 2: absolutely no issued Yagalonian curse, despite some media sensationalism around

1022
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:04,440
Speaker 2: this as well, like he never said don't open my

1023
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 2: tomb or there will be a fungus or anything like that.

1024
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 2: This just is the way it panned out. But it

1025
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 2: certainly didn't stop various folks from absorbing this information and

1026
00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 2: then saying, well, what about touch tom What if this

1027
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 2: actual occurrence is the reason that people died because of

1028
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 2: opening king's touch tomb. Again, all the problems with the

1029
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 2: accuracy of that statement in play, they just couldn't help themselves.

1030
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 2: So despite again, despite the fact that with King tut

1031
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:42,919
Speaker 2: we're dealing really with only a single death with other

1032
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 2: very well known factors in place, and we know that

1033
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:49,160
Speaker 2: no one else associated with the opening of this tomb

1034
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 2: died of any mysterious causes. There's also no evidence that

1035
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 2: touch tomb contained dangerous microbes or fungi of any sort. Furthermore,

1036
00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 2: according to Colleen Dornell, no one she knows of has

1037
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 2: ever become ill from entering an Egyptian tomb. Yes, you

1038
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 2: can catch pneumonia later, you can catch all number of

1039
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:11,240
Speaker 2: things later, and you will eventually die after visiting an

1040
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 2: Egyptian tomb. That's one hundred percent true. Yeah, but you'll

1041
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 2: all that also happen if you don't visit an Egyptian tomb,

1042
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 2: which doesn't mean you absolutely should, because again, it's going

1043
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:24,919
Speaker 2: to happen either way. But I guess what I'm trying

1044
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 2: to say is, Yeah, this idea of there being some

1045
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 2: sort of a biological agent in the tomb that does,

1046
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:33,880
Speaker 2: from in a medical sense, curse the individual. It is

1047
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:38,200
Speaker 2: technically possible with certain tombs, but not this one.

1048
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 3: Right, technically possible, but doesn't even seem to be especially

1049
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 3: common with the opening of tombs.

1050
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:51,200
Speaker 2: Right, right, But it's an infectious idea, Yeah, MS T

1051
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:54,720
Speaker 2: three K fans, for example, especially may remember a nineteen

1052
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:58,320
Speaker 2: eighty two Mummy movie titled time Walker. It stars Ben

1053
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 2: Murphy and its plot concerns a deadly alien fungus inside

1054
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:04,040
Speaker 2: an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus.

1055
01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:05,880
Speaker 3: I've never made it all the way through this film,

1056
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 3: but I love the idea of a space mummy, So.

1057
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen it in a while, but I

1058
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 2: remember the ending is very memorable. I forget all the

1059
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 2: beats on the way there, but the ending is a

1060
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 2: lot of fun.

1061
01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:26,320
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1062
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:28,880
Speaker 2: Now, another question in all of this may come to mind,

1063
01:01:29,640 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 2: and that is, well, what about traps? I mean, on

1064
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 2: one level, you could say, what if there was some

1065
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 2: sort of a biological agent and it was late as

1066
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 2: a trap. Well, I don't think there's any serious argument

1067
01:01:38,880 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 2: to be made for that being the case.

1068
01:01:41,560 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 3: But rob we discussed in the last episode how actually

1069
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 3: a lot in a lot of ancient Egyptian thinking that

1070
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 3: it was a common thing to attack a problem with

1071
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 3: multiple avenues, with multiple mechanisms at once. You would have

1072
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 3: a magical arm of attack and a practical arm of

1073
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 3: attack right against the same issue. So if tomb robbers

1074
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 3: were something you were worried about why not have both

1075
01:02:07,600 --> 01:02:10,120
Speaker 3: a curse on the tomb, you know, magical arm of

1076
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 3: attack and practical traps. That would make sense, wouldn't it.

1077
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:16,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a reasonable question to ask on

1078
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 2: one level, given that, I mean, we look at the pyramids,

1079
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,200
Speaker 2: we look at these the great works of the ancient Egyptians.

1080
01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 2: We know they were capable of amazing things by contemporary standards,

1081
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 2: or certainly their own standards, the standards of their time.

1082
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 2: On top of that, you know, we've all seen a

1083
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 2: little Indiana Jones. We've seen at least fictional examples of

1084
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 2: this sort of thing going on. And you know, here

1085
01:02:40,240 --> 01:02:44,000
Speaker 2: on the show, we've discussed the possibility of tomb traps

1086
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:46,760
Speaker 2: within the context of the tomb of Chin Chi Wong,

1087
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:50,600
Speaker 2: the first sovereign emperor of China. So if that's even

1088
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:56,560
Speaker 2: in the discussion for that I believe as yet unopened tomb, well,

1089
01:02:57,080 --> 01:02:58,360
Speaker 2: what about Egyptian tombs?

1090
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 3: I mean, even in that case, my memory is we

1091
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 3: were like, are there any booby trap tombs? Like in

1092
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:07,080
Speaker 3: Indiana Jones? And that was the example where there's like

1093
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:10,640
Speaker 3: the best case that there might be booby traps, But

1094
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 3: even in that case, it's only a possibility. And also,

1095
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:18,800
Speaker 3: if there ever were such traps, they're probably not still working.

1096
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:21,920
Speaker 2: Right right and if and you know, I imagine you

1097
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 2: could also ask questions like, Okay, if you have some

1098
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 2: sort of traps set up, how much of that is

1099
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 2: like a legitimate real world trap, how much of it

1100
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 2: is indeed magical thinking, like having a stone or some

1101
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:34,520
Speaker 2: sort of supercistitious or religious practice, like having a stone

1102
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:38,520
Speaker 2: warrior within your tomb, or like having various goods for

1103
01:03:38,560 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 2: the afterlife, perhaps having some sort of a crossbow set

1104
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 2: up to kill someone who enters. That could as well

1105
01:03:47,640 --> 01:03:51,040
Speaker 2: be as much a curse as it is a practical consideration.

1106
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 2: But to be clear, with Egyptian tombs, traps of this nature,

1107
01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 2: you know, pure Indiana Jones traps like trap doors and

1108
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:04,160
Speaker 2: spike pits and darts that shoot out of the walls crossbows,

1109
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 2: these are apparently unknown. And there's actually a really good

1110
01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:11,760
Speaker 2: life science article about this topic from just last month

1111
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:15,880
Speaker 2: by Owen Jaris. I found it an interesting read. The

1112
01:04:15,960 --> 01:04:20,280
Speaker 2: author spoke with Reg Clark, author of Securing Eternity, Ancient

1113
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:25,600
Speaker 2: Egyptian tomb production from prehistory and the basics of this argument.

1114
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:28,960
Speaker 2: The counter argument to the idea of traps and why

1115
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:32,280
Speaker 2: we don't see them in ancient Egyptian tombs. It comes

1116
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:34,920
Speaker 2: down to three factors. So, first of all, just about

1117
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 2: any booby trap you can think of would only have

1118
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:42,400
Speaker 2: limited success against tomb raiders because while Indiana Jones works

1119
01:04:42,520 --> 01:04:45,800
Speaker 2: alone or with just one individual a love interest or

1120
01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:49,960
Speaker 2: someone who's going to betray him, actual ancient Egyptian tune

1121
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:52,960
Speaker 2: raiders worked in large groups. So if you had a

1122
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:55,280
Speaker 2: death trap in place, yeah, you might kill a few

1123
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,520
Speaker 2: of them, but the rest are going to keep going

1124
01:04:57,600 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 2: work around the trap, or the trap's no longer going

1125
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:02,919
Speaker 2: to be be effective, and they might just not realize, hey,

1126
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:05,080
Speaker 2: we encountered a death trap, so I guess we're on

1127
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 2: the right track. We should keep going in this direction.

1128
01:05:08,400 --> 01:05:11,480
Speaker 3: That itself sort of highlights some ways that you could

1129
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 3: have practical protections for a tomb that wouldn't be deadly

1130
01:05:15,800 --> 01:05:16,680
Speaker 3: booby traps.

1131
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:20,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and again also, of course there are all

1132
01:05:20,800 --> 01:05:23,800
Speaker 2: these practical concerns with a passive trap. They weren't great

1133
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 2: in an Indiana Jones movie, but with they work in reality,

1134
01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:30,560
Speaker 2: and when it comes down to it, it seems like

1135
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:35,080
Speaker 2: architectural features were just far more effective ways of keeping

1136
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:40,120
Speaker 2: out tomb raiders. So passages sealed with huge sliding blocks

1137
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:45,440
Speaker 2: or just a cascade of rocky material that would work

1138
01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 2: far better than any trap you could imagine, because you

1139
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 2: know it's just just you know, you're dealing with rock,

1140
01:05:51,280 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 2: You're dealing with with just sheer weight and mass. Additionally,

1141
01:05:55,880 --> 01:05:59,120
Speaker 2: it's possible that some pyramid passages that seem to lead

1142
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:03,560
Speaker 2: nowhere were included to confuse robbers. I think there's still

1143
01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 2: some open questions about this, and I've also read like

1144
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:11,160
Speaker 2: the possibility of trying to convince the tomb raider or

1145
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:13,080
Speaker 2: the would be tomb raider that the tomb has already

1146
01:06:13,080 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 2: been robbed is another possible strategy that was employed. And

1147
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:22,920
Speaker 2: these would these would evolve, especially the architectural features, These

1148
01:06:22,920 --> 01:06:25,480
Speaker 2: would have been the most effective against your tomb raiders.

1149
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:28,640
Speaker 2: Just putting an enormous stone block between them and what

1150
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 2: they want to steal. That's going to work better than anything.

1151
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:35,200
Speaker 3: Right, So we know they definitely use the locking mechanism

1152
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 3: seal the entrance or try to hide the entrance. They

1153
01:06:38,720 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 3: may also have used various forms of confusion against tomb robbers,

1154
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:47,120
Speaker 3: like maybe a false chamber or a false passage or

1155
01:06:47,120 --> 01:06:49,800
Speaker 3: something that's more up for debate. What we have no

1156
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 3: evidence of is like, yeah, spikes that shoot out or

1157
01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:54,840
Speaker 3: crossbows or anything like that.

1158
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:57,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then on top of this, first of all,

1159
01:06:57,320 --> 01:07:01,000
Speaker 2: we have to we have to think about the fact that, yeah,

1160
01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 2: the ancient Egyptians clearly thought about eternity and long term

1161
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:09,200
Speaker 2: time and the same way that humans today do as well.

1162
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 2: But they also were very concerned with the actual threats

1163
01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:16,440
Speaker 2: of the day, and therefore it was a little different

1164
01:07:16,440 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 2: than imagining Indiana Jones trumping in. Right. You were dealing

1165
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:25,320
Speaker 2: with known tomb raiders, known tomb raider groups, known operations,

1166
01:07:25,760 --> 01:07:28,320
Speaker 2: and therefore you had first of all, the potential for

1167
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 2: just human guards to be involved human patrols, and you

1168
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:34,840
Speaker 2: had the dual powers of first of all, real world

1169
01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:38,920
Speaker 2: laws with brutal punishments for tomb raiders, and then on

1170
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:42,080
Speaker 2: top of that and also in case those didn't work,

1171
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:44,480
Speaker 2: the supernatural curses we've been discussing.

1172
01:07:44,840 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 3: Yes, and to really hammer on something you said just

1173
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 3: a second ago, From my understanding, the biggest concern about

1174
01:07:53,000 --> 01:07:57,000
Speaker 3: grave robbers in ancient Egypt wasn't about the distant future.

1175
01:07:57,120 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 3: It was about you were concerned about people who would

1176
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:01,800
Speaker 3: come rob your time, whom a few months after it

1177
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:03,840
Speaker 3: was sealed or within a few years.

1178
01:08:04,080 --> 01:08:06,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, which was again the case with King Tut's tomb

1179
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:09,800
Speaker 2: as well, like Rob twice just in the immediate aftermath

1180
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:13,760
Speaker 2: of the burials. So yeah, this is more what they

1181
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:17,880
Speaker 2: seem to be concerned about. But it is almost we

1182
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:21,400
Speaker 2: almost have. It almost feels counterintuitive at times when we

1183
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 2: think about them, because we are. When we think about

1184
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:26,400
Speaker 2: the ancient Egyptians, Yeah, we do get down and think

1185
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:28,759
Speaker 2: about them as like, you know, real people that lived

1186
01:08:28,800 --> 01:08:32,320
Speaker 2: real lives and were in so many respects much like

1187
01:08:32,600 --> 01:08:35,240
Speaker 2: we are. But on the other hand, yeah, we also

1188
01:08:35,280 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 2: think about an ancient people like and they that have

1189
01:08:39,040 --> 01:08:42,680
Speaker 2: this kind of mythic quality about everything they do, you know,

1190
01:08:42,760 --> 01:08:45,879
Speaker 2: even if the thing they're doing is you know, consuming

1191
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:48,280
Speaker 2: honey honey, or trying to treat an illness or just

1192
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:51,400
Speaker 2: every little thing that occupies our lives today.

1193
01:08:51,880 --> 01:08:55,679
Speaker 3: When we think about them, it's tempting to imagine that

1194
01:08:55,800 --> 01:08:59,800
Speaker 3: they were thinking about us, but probably weren't thinking about us,

1195
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:03,240
Speaker 3: were much more likely thinking about their own contempt, themselves

1196
01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:04,440
Speaker 3: and their own contemporaries.

1197
01:09:04,800 --> 01:09:08,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Though, one point that Colleen Darnell made was that

1198
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:10,920
Speaker 2: you know, King Tut would probably be pleased to know

1199
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:13,479
Speaker 2: that we are still talking about him, still thinking about

1200
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:16,200
Speaker 2: him today, you know, I mean talk about you know,

1201
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:19,720
Speaker 2: long term name value or at least a resurgence. You know,

1202
01:09:20,040 --> 01:09:21,840
Speaker 2: I guess there was a long period of time where

1203
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:24,360
Speaker 2: people were maybe not talking about Dudent in common. But today,

1204
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:28,640
Speaker 2: I mean he is probably for most people, he is

1205
01:09:28,720 --> 01:09:31,160
Speaker 2: like the pharaoh you would name. If you went out

1206
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:33,839
Speaker 2: and ask people on the street, like, name a pharaoh,

1207
01:09:34,200 --> 01:09:35,519
Speaker 2: they would probably say King Tut.

1208
01:09:35,840 --> 01:09:36,040
Speaker 4: Oh.

1209
01:09:36,080 --> 01:09:37,920
Speaker 3: Well, to bring it back to the subject of a

1210
01:09:37,920 --> 01:09:41,800
Speaker 3: Writtner's divine compulsion, one of the things that a tomb

1211
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:44,240
Speaker 3: would sometimes say, you know, the power of a deity

1212
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:46,960
Speaker 3: or supernatural being will seize you and compel you to

1213
01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:49,880
Speaker 3: do is to speak the name. Speak the name of

1214
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:52,800
Speaker 3: the person buried here, because that was thought to have

1215
01:09:52,840 --> 01:09:55,280
Speaker 3: a power of its own. It's something that some people,

1216
01:09:55,479 --> 01:09:57,799
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people buried in ancient Egypt

1217
01:09:57,880 --> 01:10:00,840
Speaker 3: wanted people to do. They wanted people after they had

1218
01:10:00,920 --> 01:10:03,640
Speaker 3: died to continue to speak their name. That was like

1219
01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:07,880
Speaker 3: a blessing you could bestow upon them. Yeah, yeah, so

1220
01:10:07,960 --> 01:10:10,439
Speaker 3: do something nice for an ancient Egyptian speak their name.

1221
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:13,760
Speaker 2: There you go. All right, We're gonna go ahead and

1222
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:15,800
Speaker 2: close this out, but we'd love to hear from everyone

1223
01:10:15,880 --> 01:10:19,200
Speaker 2: out there. We'd love to hear from folks who have

1224
01:10:19,280 --> 01:10:24,160
Speaker 2: engaged in Egypt, Domania, and Egyptology to varying degrees. If

1225
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:27,280
Speaker 2: you've visited any of the sites that we have referenced

1226
01:10:27,880 --> 01:10:30,200
Speaker 2: in these episodes, we would of course love to hear

1227
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:34,519
Speaker 2: your experiences and gain your knowledge right in. We would

1228
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:36,960
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff

1229
01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:39,400
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

1230
01:10:39,439 --> 01:10:42,360
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we

1231
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:44,479
Speaker 2: do a short form episode, and on Fridays we set

1232
01:10:44,479 --> 01:10:46,559
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird

1233
01:10:46,560 --> 01:10:48,360
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

1234
01:10:48,600 --> 01:10:52,280
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1235
01:10:52,520 --> 01:10:54,080
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1236
01:10:54,080 --> 01:10:56,519
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1237
01:10:56,520 --> 01:10:58,519
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1238
01:10:58,880 --> 01:11:01,400
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1239
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:09,360
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1240
01:11:09,400 --> 01:11:12,360
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1241
01:11:12,439 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1242
01:11:15,360 --> 01:11:16,920
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1243
01:11:16,880 --> 01:11:31,840
Speaker 7: Listen to your favorite shows.

1244
01:11:37,160 --> 01:11:37,200
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