POISON TOMB THEORY

Evening Star, Issue 18258, 24 April 1923, Page 11

POISON TOMB THEORY

LORD CARNARVON’S DEATH,

RIDICULED BY SCIENTISTS, LONDON, April 7. Scientists ridicule the theory, propounded notably by Miss Mario Corelli, the novelist, that Lord Carnarvon’s death was due to some supernatural influence from tho departed Pharaoh. Miss Corelli says that she has a translation by a physician of a Louis the Sixteenth Arabic book, not in the British Museum, and mentioning that secret poison boxes were placed in the tombs of Pharaohs, so that “ those touching them shall not know how they camo to suffer.” “ It is all bunkum," declares Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, keeper of tho Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum. “ The book mentioned is in the museum. Vatier, the translator; died in 1667, so he could not have been Louis’s physician. Poison boxes have nover been found in tombs. “ If there is anything in tho vengeance idea, everyone possessing Egyptian relics would bo accursed."

Another prominent authority regarded the suggestion with impatience, and said that the idea of ruin and disaster overtaking desecrators of tombs was occasionally met with in papyri, but this was not peculiar to tho ancient Egyptians. If the curse was effective there would not bo any Egyptologists left. “ Professor Reisner has explored thousands of tombs, ns well as Professor Flinders Petrie, while Professor G. Elliot Smith, a distinguished Australian, dobs nothing but examine mummies. “ Nothing has happened to any of them. Lord Carnarvon is tho only one.”