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The Curse of King Tut

King Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered 87 years ago today in Thebes, Egypt, by English archaeologist Howard Carter. In a country whose antiquities had for centuries been the target of theft, it was a 3000-year-old gold mine - full of golden shrines...

King Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered 87 years ago today in Thebes, Egypt, by English archaeologist Howard Carter. In a country whose antiquities had for centuries been the target of theft, it was a 3000-year-old gold mine – full of golden shrines, jewelry, statues, a chariot, weapons, clothing, and best of all, a solid gold coffin containing the mummified body of King Tut – the first perfectly preserved mummy ever to be discovered.

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In this video, Zahi Hawass, the famous, fedora-wearing archeologist and recently appointed minister of antiquities in Egypt, describes one of the most popular of the stories around the monumental discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Hawass says he never believed any rumors of a curse upon those who would plunder the tomb – at least not until he faces his own mysterious set of circumstances after examining the boy king’s mummy.

The treasures of the tomb remains at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Hawass, whom young Egyptians are now accusing for being a “showman” (guilty as charged) while archeology students remain largely unemployed, is under fire for declaring that no artifacts had been stolen from the museum or damaged during the city’s recent upheaval, even though a number have been. Among them were two mummies beheaded by vandals, including possibly Tutankhamun’s grandparents. An argument, writes Alex Joffe, elliptically, at the Journal, against Hawass’ efforts to return treasures to their original countries.

Meanwhile, a team of “CSI” archeologists have actually determined that King Tut died from malaria and bone deformities: