POISONED TOMB THEORY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16113, 30 April 1923, Page 9

POISONED TOMB THEORY.

LORD'CARNARVON'S DEATH

RIDICULED BY SCIENTISTS.

LONDON, April 7.—Scientists ridicule the theory, propounded notably by Miss Marie Corelli, the novelist, that Lord Carnarvon's death was due to some supernatural influence from the 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 came to suffer."

"It is all bunkum," declares Sir E. A. Wallis, Budge, Keeper of the Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum. "The book mentioned is in tho Museum. Vatier, the translator, died in 1667, so ho could not have been Louis's physician. Poison-boxes have never 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 tlie idea of ruin and disaster overtaking dcsecrjitors of tombs was occasionally met with with in papyri, but'this was not peculiar to tho ancient Egyptians. If tho curse was effective there would not bo any Egyptologists loft. "Professor" Reisuer has explored thousands of tombs, as well as Professor Flinders Petrio, while Professor G. Elliott Smith, a distinguished Australian, does nothing but examino mummies. "Nothing has happened to any of them. Lord Carnarvon is the only one." *■