The Curse of the Pharaohs' Tombs

by Harrison Paul

  Moving back to the funerary rituals, once the body was carried back to the dead person’s home, it was placed in a large coffin which was shaped in human form, inscribed with magic charms and decorated with sacred symbols and figures of gods and goddesses. The face of the dead individual would be carved on the lid; in Roman times it would be painted on. Once ready, the internment could take place. The funeral procession, as it is today, was a solemn affair with all family members being present, as women mourners wailed aloud on the funerary route to the cemetery. The mummy, in its sealed coffin, was drawn along on a kind of sledge. On arrival at the tomb, the coffin was set up on its end, always facing the south. The ceremony was carried out by the chief mourner, whose role it was to recite the ritual from a prepared papyrus roll. Two females representing both Isis and Nepthys were present, and the ceremony was a replication of the scene when the god Osiris had his dismembered body restored by his wife after death and prepared for burial. At this stage the body had to be instructed on how to reach Egyptian heaven; it was to travel a long and arduous journey that could only be completed by use of magic formulae. These formulae were secret and were spoken into the corpse’s ear. To make doubly sure the corpse would remember the instructions, the formulae were etched into the coffin, and also the walls of the tomb. It later became the custom to write this on papyrus rolls, which could be laid in the coffin or placed within the mummy bandages.

  The coffin was then lowered down the grave shaft into a secret chamber, where an image of the dead had been placed, along with clothing, food, wine, a weapon, ornaments, perfumes and household possessions and even furniture. The entrance was then closed up and sealed. The cult of Osiris believed that heaven was the double of the Delta region. Before this could be reached the soul must travel a weary journey that was fraught with countless dangers. The paradise of Aalu, as it was known, was situated on the west bank of the Nile, and to get there bleak and waterless deserts had to be crossed, some infested by fierce reptiles and boiling streams. When the soul set out on his journey, he took with him a stave to fight off unwanted entities and food for nourishment. His initial challenge was to climb the western mountains and then enter the Kingdom of the Dead. As he neared his destination a large sycamore tree stood before him; on this, clusters of fruit were visible among its succulent foliage. As he approached it, a goddess leaned down from the tree trunk, displaying only the upper part of her body. In her hands she held a plate heaped with cake and fruit and a pot of clear fresh water. To continue the journey, the soul must eat and drink the magic offerings so as to become a servant of the gods. If he rejected the hospitality of the tree goddess, he would return to the dark and miserable tomb from which he came, and forever lead there a solitary and joyless existence.

  The soul who accepted the hospitality could proceed on its journey, encountering further more sinister and dangerous trials, as evil spirits and demons sought to defeat him, so he would suffer a second death which would cause him to cease to exist in any form. He battled with a gigantic tortoise using his stave to defeat it, elsewhere serpents lurked and were poised to strike. These too were enemies to be overcome. Insects with poisonous stings attacked him. Without doubt, the soul’s most formidable enemy was Seth, the murderer of Osiris. He was the terror of the good god and men, who appeared as a huge red monster bearing a head like a camel, with the body of a hound, his long forked tail erect and venomous, desperate to devour the pilgrim. When the evil Seth has been overcome and driven back, the soul progresses until he reaches the bank of a wide river. There a magic boat awaited, its crew silent divinities that neither offer nor provide any assistance. Before he could embark, he had to answer each question asked of him by the boat, and relate how it is constructed in every part. If the papyrus roll that was laid beside his mummy contained the secret of the boat and the magic formulae, that too must be repeated. Only then could he be ferried across the river and taken to the Kingdom of Osiris.

  The dark and sinister ferryman was called Turnface, and his face constantly looked in the opposite direction from the dead who called to him. After climbing on board the boat, the soul’s journey was still nowhere near its end. The soul wished greatly to be among the happy beings who already had their dwellings in the blessed fields of Aalu, but first the soul had to be tried by Osiris, the King of the Dead and the Judge of All. The solitary approach to paradise was through the Hall of Justice which slowly rose before him, unwelcoming, dark and mysterious. The gate was shut fast and no mortal man could draw the securing bolts or enter without the permission of Osiris. The soul now stood before the gate with both his hands held high in adoration of the great king, who beheld him from within the Hall of Justice. Then, in clear, full voice the soul proclaimed its negative confession before Osiris:

  Hail, unto you, O great God, you who are lord of the truth! Lo! I draw nigh to thee now, O my lord, and my eyes behold your beauty. You I know, and I know also the two-and-forty gods assembled with you in the hall of justice; They observe all the deeds of the wicked; They devour those who seek to do evil; They drink the blood of those who are condemned before you, O just and good king. Hail! Lord of Justice; you I know, I come before you even now to speak what is true; I will not utter what is false, O Lord of All.

  The soul then recited the ritual Negative Confession in which he claimed to be guiltless of the offences that are punishable:

  I have not committed crimes against people. I have not mistreated the cattle. I have not sinned in the place of truth (temple or necropolis). I have not known that which should not be known. I have not done any harm. I have not exacted more than was my due. I have not committed blasphemy against the gods. I have not robbed the poor. I have not done what the gods hate. I have not spoken ill of a servant to their master. I have not caused pain. I have not caused tears. I have not killed or ordered anyone to kill.

  I have not caused suffering.

  I have not damaged the temple offerings.

  I have not stolen bread from the gods.

  I have not stolen bread from the dead.

  I have not committed adultery nor defiled myself.

  I have not taken milk from children’s mouths.

  I have not neglected the time of meat offerings.

  I have not stopped a god in procession.

  I have done no evil against any man.

  I have never caused my kinsfolk to be put to death.

  I have not caused false witnesses to speak in the hall of justice.

  I have not done that which is hated by the gods.

  I am not a worker of wickedness.

  I have never oppressed a servant with too much work.

  I have not caused men to hunger nor to weep.

  I have not been devoid of good works, nor have I acted weakly or with meanness.

  I am not a murderer.

  I have not conspired to have another put to death.

  I have not plotted to make another grieve.

  I have not taken away temple offerings.

  I have not stinted the food offered to the gods.

  I have not despoiled the dead.

  I have never committed adultery.

  I have not failed to keep myself pure as a priest.

  I have not lessened the corn measure.

  I have not shortened the hand measure.

  I have not tampered with the balance.

  I have not deprived children of milk.

  I have not stolen cattle from the meadows.

  I have not snared the birds consecrated to the gods.

  I have not taken fish from holy lakes.

  I have not prevented (Nile) waters from a channel.

  I have not turned aside the water.

  I have not stolen water from a channel.

  I have not put out the fire when it should burn.

  I have never kept from the Nine Gods what was their due.

  I have not prevented the temple cattle from grazing on my land.

  I have not obstructed a god (his imag
e) when he came forth (in a festival procession).

  I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure!

  I am pure as the great heron of Hnes.

  No harm shall befall me in this Hall of two truths,

  for I know the name of all the gods within it,

  all the followers of the great god (Osiris):

  O Wide-Strider of Heliopolis, I have not done evil;

  O Flame-Embracer of Khehara, I have not committed robbery;

  O Beaky of Khmun, I am not guilty of greed;

  O Shadow-Eater from the Cave, I am not guilty of stealing;

  O Terrifying Face of Rostau, I am not guilty of murder;

  O Wrecker from Huy, I am not guilty of winking;

  O Backward Face of the Pit, I am not guilty of homosexuality.

  Hail to you gods!

  I know you and know your names,

  I shall not fall down in fear of you,

  you shall not accuse me of a crime.

  The jackal-headed god Anubis then strode forward from the hall and led the soul by the hand to be taken before Osiris, who had already listened to the Negative Confession and now sat in silence. Not a word would be uttered as the soul entered the Hall of Two-Truths (Hall of Judgment). Osiris, the King of the Dead was enthroned on his dais. His crown rested upon his head, in one hand he held a crook and in the other a flail. Before him stood the balance on which the mortal heart of the dead man would be weighed. Thoth, the recording god, stood next to the balance, and both Horus and Maat, goddess of truth and justice were present. Below sat a guardian of the balance, in the form of a monster called Ammut (the Devourer), a creature with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion and the hind legs of a hippopotamus, which was ready to fall upon condemned sinners standing before the great god Osiris.

  Around the hall lay in wait the forty-two animal gods known as the Assessors, the judges of the dead. Bearing names such as Beaky, or Shadow-Eater, they were ready to tear the wicked and condemned to pieces. The soul watched the gods deliberately weighing his heart in the balance, while the symbol of Maat, an ostrich feather, occupied the opposite scale. The soul cried out to his heart not to witness against him. ‘O heart that was mine do not say “Behold the things he has done.” Permit me not to be wronged in the presence of the great god.’ If the heart was found to be neither too heavy nor too light, the dead man was acquitted. Thoth stepped forward and made known the result of the weighing to Osiris, who in turn instructed that the heart be restored to the man on trial. ‘He has won the victory,’ the King of the Dead exclaimed. ‘Now let him dwell with the spirits and the gods in the fields of Aalu he is true of voice.’ The deceased was then taken by Horus to stand before Osiris and told to ‘throw away your mask and undo your wrappings!’

  The divine Kingdom was a greater, more glorious Egypt in which the souls resided, a place where each and every man was allotted a task and the journey was complete. When the soul wished to return to visit familiar scenes on earth, it entered the body of a bird or an animal, or blossomed as a flower. It might also visit the tomb as the ka and reanimate the mummy, then go forth to gaze on scenes that were familiar in other days. The souls of the dead men whom Osiris condemned because of their sins committed on earth, were subjected to excruciating torture, pain and suffering. They were already aware that ‘wrongdoers shall not behold the face of god’ and that hearts that were overweight with sin were thrown to Ammut and the Assessors.

  One might say that was a fate worse than death.

  Chapter 8

  The Curse of the Pharaohs

  It is estimated that for over 500 years the pharaohs of ancient Egypt arranged for their tombs to be built within the hills across the Nile from Thebes (now Luxor), a site now known as the Valley of the Kings. The tombs and the valley remained relatively untouched for centuries, although Roman graffiti indicates that the tombs were frequently visited. One of the first modern treasure-seekers to dig in the valley was ex-circus strongman Giovanni Belzoni. In 1817, after digging for around ten days, he came upon three unknown tombs including that of King Seti I. He later published his memoirs, describing the uncovering of the tombs and how a battering ram was used to open ancient sealed doorways, whereupon he found ‘heaps of mummies in all directions. I sunk altogether among the broken mummies, with a crash of bones, rags and wooden cases.’ Belzoni’s find inspired a host of tomb robbers to visit the valley and loot whatever treasures they could find. Belzoni himself died in suspicious surroundings in 1823, after contracting a mysterious disease that was thought have come from the excavations of the tomb of Seti I.

  By 1827 twenty-one ancient burial tombs had been located in the valley, resulting in mass grave robbery and a black market for antiquities. By the middle of the nineteenth century, tourists were regular visitors to the valley, where they would be offered genuine artifacts removed from the tombs. It wasn’t until 1857 that the Egyptian government felt it necessary to establish the Antiquities Service and create a museum where items recovered from the tombs could be displayed and stored securely.

  Later, in 1858, incidents of strange deaths relating to the ancient Egyptians began to be reported. It is said that four fit and healthy European tourists, who had visited the pyramids at Giza, died suddenly and within days of one another. The deaths were officially recorded as the effects of various fevers caught in the Egyptian desert. It has been suggested that the physicians who carried out autopsy examinations of the corpses later testified that the report was fraudulent and their original findings had been edited. They were convinced that there was no known medical explanation or reason for the untimely deaths.

  By 1902, around forty tombs had been found in the valley. In 2015, over sixty tombs are known to exist in the Valley of the Kings, from small tombs which could be described as holes in the ground to much larger tombs. Most of them held little evidence of any defined curse ascribed to them. That, however, does not mean to say that tomb curses did not exist: they did, and we have a wealth of clear evidence supporting this fact. Robbery and theft from the tombs was a serious issue, so pharaohs requested that their bespoke tomb designers employ unique and ingenious means to prevent and deter robbers from desecrating the tombs. Many of the tombs discovered displayed evidence of traps deliberately set to prevent unauthorised access into the valuable inner confines, and some bore hieroglyphic inscriptions on sealed outer doors that were believed to be curses making all kinds of threats, seemingly with no moral boundaries. The phrasing and location of the tomb inscription was meant to strike terror into the heart of any potential tomb raider. One curse that seems to cover all eventualities comes from the administrator of the 18th dynasty, Amenhotep, the son of Hapu. He threatens anyone who would damage his tomb with a comprehensive list of punishments. They would:

  Lose their earthly positions and honors, be incinerated in a furnace in execration rites, capsize and drown at sea, have no successors, receive no tomb or funerary offerings of their own, and their bodies would decay because they will starve without sustenance and their bones will perish.

  Another well-known curse is preserved in the Dynasty 5 Pyramid Texts (Utterance 534, §1278-9):

  As for anyone who shall lay a finger on this pyramid and this temple which belong to me and my ka, he will have laid his finger on the Mansion of Horus in the firmament, he will have offended the Lady of the Mansion... his affair will be judged by the Ennead and he will be nowhere and his house will be nowhere; he will be one proscribed, one who eats himself.

  The vast majority of the royal tombs did not have curses, but threatening inscriptions have been found in many private tombs, generally those dating back to the Old Kingdom. These effectively consist of the tomb owner invoking judgment in the underworld on any would-be tomb violator. The following inscription was found on an Anubis shrine: ‘It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber. I am for the protection of the deceased’. Such messages depict Anubis as a protector of the dead, an entity that possesses mystical power and
the ability to move between the mortal and spiritual world. Another inscription was found in the tomb of Meni, a courtier of the Fourth Dynasty:

  As for any man who did these things for me, he should not be dissatisfied, because, whether sculptor or stonemason, I paid him for it. Let the crocodile be against him in the water, the snake against him on the land. I have never done anything against him and it is the god who will judge him for it.