When Howard Carter and friends found King Tut's tomb in 1922, little did they know that they

were just about to fall victim to the greatest urban legend in archaeology. King Tut's

curse. It's said that the members of Carter's party fell ill, were killed in accidents,

or otherwise suffered as a result of breaking into the forbidden tomb. Did such a curse

actually take any toll on the party? We have the light of science to illuminate the answer.

And we're doing that right now on Skeptoid.

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You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. King Tut's curse.

We've all heard the story of the mummy's curse, and we've all heard the popular explanation,

but you may not know the numbers behind the story. Today we're going to point our skeptical

eye at King Tut's curse and find out exactly how the story goes, explore the scientific

sounding explanation proposed by the media, and finally, we're going to look at what really

happened. In 1922, Howard Carter was exploring the Valley of the Kings in Egypt with his friend

and financial backer, George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Karnarvan. After a 15-year search,

they opened the fabulous tomb of King Tutankhamon. The most spectacular tomb found to date and

now known as KV62. Carter poked a hole through the seal and peered inside, and when Lord

Karnarvan asked if he could see anything, Carter famously replied, yes, wonderful things.

...