[Sca-cooks] noncooking topic

[Terry Decker]

Tutankhamen is the classic "Curse of the Pharaohs."  Of the deaths 
attributed to the curse, blood poisoning from an infected mosquito bite over 
4 months after opening the tomb, fever 6 months after, shot (by wife), blood 
poisoning from a failed dental procedure, a mysterious illness over a year 
after the opening, assassination, arsenic poisoning, malarial pneumonia, 
suicide by poison, suicide by fall, and Howard Carter the opener of the tomb 
died of apparently natural causes 16 years after the opening.  1 out of 11 
that might conceivably (the radiologist that x-rayed the mummy) be from tomb 
related pathogens.

As I pointed out, there are no confirmed cases of bacterial or fungi 
infections from Egyptian tombs.  You are more likely to get valley fever on 
a dig in the U.S. Southwest.  The curse is journalistic hype, created from a 
few facts and a lot of speculation, meant to sell newspapers.  It's a 
fantasy like the Great Honolulu Pirate Raid.

Bear


I wasn’t so much worried about the humans hurting the mummies, but their 
envoironment. For instance, if you find some unusual fungus or 
microorganism, if you go in unprotected, you don’t really know if that 
organism survived from 4000 years ago, or whether the inspectors introduced 
it. And after you’ve introduced the tourists, all bets are off.

Maybe too much reading about Mars colonization. :-)

That is a reasonable explanation for the “Pharaoh’s Curse”.

Stefan