FEAR OF THE DEAD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18459, 28 December 1929, Page 9

FEAR OF THE DEAD

TUTANKHAMEN’S TOMB. CONAN DOYLE S STORY. Mr Richard Bethell, who, as secretary to Mr Howard Carter, had a hand in the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamen, evidently laughed at the belief that it is dangerous to disturb the bodies of the departed. He did not fear that a curse would follow him from the Valley of the Kings, as is sufficiently indicated by the lighthearted way in which he named his daughter Neferteti, after the beautiful queen of the boy Pharaoh, whose royal remains he had helped to unearth. Many credulous people, however, cannot be persuaded that the dead are not able to avenge the desecration of their graves. They will see something significant in the sudden dqath of Mr Bethell recently, especially since, according to the London “Daily Mail’s” calculations, he is the tenth person connected with excavations to die rather prematurely. Fear of the dead is natural in the living; and those who have studied the subject say that this simple fact is the explanation of nearly all the ceremonies connected with burial. The ancient Egyptians were undoubtedly terrified by superstititions relating to dead bodies and earth-bound spirits. Those who buried the mummy at Tuankhamen were mortally afraid of it—hence all the care with which it was entombed, surrounded by a house-full of priceless furniture and jewels. It would be interesting to know what happened to the robbers who, many years ago, despoiled the tombs of the Pharaohs, and how many of them died of superstitious terror after their ghoulish work was done. Did the spirits of the dead deal with them as they are supposed to have dealt with Lord Carnarvon and the men associated with him in the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamen? The old tomb robbers gave the spirits every cause for resentment. In some cases, they even hacked the mummy itself to pieces. The body of Tutankhamen seems to have been the only one actually handled by thieves.” “The mummy of Tutankhamen,” says Elliot Smith, “has rested within the gilded shrines in his tomb unmolested, apd is the sole Pharaoh hitherto found who has escaped the doom of his peers.” This was written, of course, before Mr Howard Carter had completed his work. Bitter was that gentleman’s disappointment when he found that Tutankhamen’s mummy, although it has not been damaged by thieves, had been so excessively deluged with precious ointments at the time of burial as to be in a condition of considerable decay.

Everyone knows the lines on Shakespeare’s tomb:— Good friend, for Jesu’s sake forbear, To dig the dust inclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones. If there was any similar curse in store for those who moved the bones of the boy Pharaoh, Lord Carnarvon and his associates were those upon whom it would fall. His Lordship) died within a few weeks, following an insect bite. He was weary from overwork, and his vitality was at a low ebb, and the doctors said his death was not unnatural. Other people vowed that they know better. Miss Marie Corelli quoted from a rare book in her possession "which threatens the most dire punishment to any rash intruder into a sealed tomb.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was inclined to attribute Lord Carnarvon’s death to the vengeance of the spirit world. Sir Arthur did not suggest that the ghost of the dead Pharaoh was actually hanging about the tomb after 3000 years; but he thought there would be an “elemental” built up by the spirits, and that the presence of such “elementals” made it rather a dangerous business to dig up tombs. “There was the son of Sir William Ingram,” the creator of Sherlock Holmes went on. “Sir William, who publisher of ‘The Illustrated London News,’ told he the story himself, so I know it is true. His son dug up a mummy in Africa, and on the breast of the mummy there was some sort of an inscription to this effect:— ‘May the person who unwraps me die swiftly, and may his bones never be found.” “I don’t remember the exact wording. But the young fellow, after he had found the mummy, went heavygame hunting, and was killed by a buffalo. His companion had to go for aid some distance, and left the body in a trench. When he returned, the body had been washed away by a torrent, and so it never was found. So there you are l”