[NormsRevenge]

Thu Dec 19, 9:52 PM ET

King Tutankhamen's infamous 'curse of the mummy's tomb', supposed to have killed off many of those involved in the opening of the pharoah's tomb 80 years ago was a myth, Australian researchers say. A file photo shows a camel rider passing the 4,500-year-old great pyramid of Cheops. REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby

[Billthedrill]

"I've never had any weird experience with a mummy, and I've worked with them for 30 years," says Bob Brier, an Egyptologist at Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus...

"...I mean, in New York it's perfectly normal to have a bandage-wrapped lump of rotting flesh following you around mouthing obscenities in a language you don't speak. Toss 'em a quarter and they usually go away..."

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well, I'm glad that this mystery was finally unraveled...

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

seemed relevant, and this "Titanic Mummy" story makes the email rounds every once in a while.

The Myth of the Titanic Mummy
by Lee Krystek, 2000

Shipping records show no mummy was on board the Titanic (this may be why some versions of the tale say that the archaeologist smuggled it aboard). In no account by any Titanic survivor do they mention sharing a lifeboat with a mummy (which wouldn't have been easy to forget). Nor did any rescuer report taking a mummy on board... The Titanic portion of the story may have been inspired by the loss of the Menkaure sarcophagus in 1838. The sarcophagus, which was being shipped from Egypt to England, was considered to be one of the finest examples of art from the Old Kingdom period. It went to the bottom of the sea when the ship carrying it, The Beatrice, sunk in deep water somewhere near Cartagena. The truth is that the Priestess Amun coffin lid (British Museum item No. 22542) is still sitting quietly in the British Museum's second Egyptian room, where it can be seen today.

The sinking of the Beatrice with the Menkaure sarcophagus sounds like the probable source of the story, although the web sources regarding this sinking are all over the map (literally) as to where the ship went down. Menkaure, a.k.a. Mycerinus, is the third of the major pyramids at Giza.

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