King Tutankhamun's 'curse'

The Royal Cobra (Uraeus),
 representing the
protector goddess
 Wadjet, atop the
 mask of Tutankhamun

The Curse of the Pharaohs refers to the belief that any person who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian person, especially a pharaoh, is placed under a curse. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and well-intentioned archaeologists, may allegedly cause bad luck, illness or death. Since the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that curses are 'real' in the sense of being caused by scientifically explicable causes such as bacteria or radiation. However, the modern origins of Egyptian mummy curse tales, their development primarily in European cultures, the shift from magic to science to explain curses, and their changing uses—from condemning disturbance of the dead to entertaining horror film audiences—suggest that Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not exclusively scientific, phenomenon.
There are occasional instances of genuine ancient curses appearing inside or on the facade of a tomb as in the case of the mastaba of Khentika Ikhekhi of the 6th dynasty at Saqqara. These appear to be directed towards the ka priests to carefully protect the tomb and preserve ritual purity rather than a warning for potential robbers. Though there had been stories of curses going back to the 19th century, they multiplied in the aftermath of Howard Carter's discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Despite popular misconceptions, there was no actual written curse found in the Pharaoh's tomb.The evidence for such curses
relating to King Tutankhamun has been considered to be so meager that it is viewed as "unadulterated clap trap" by Donald B. Redford.

Opening of King Tutankhamun's tomb
King Tutankhamun's 'curse'
Howard Carter's team opened the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, launching the modern era of Egyptology.The belief in a curse was brought to many people's attention due to the sometimes mysterious deaths of a few members of Carter's team and other prominent visitors to the tomb shortly thereafter.
The famous Egyptologist James Henry Breasted worked with Carter soon after the first opening of the tomb. He reported how Carter sent a messenger on an errand to his house. On approaching his home he thought he heard a "faint, almost human cry". On reaching the entrance he saw the bird cage occupied by a cobra, the symbol of Egyptian monarchy. Carter's canary had died in its mouth and this fueled local rumors of a curse.Arthur Weigall, a previous Inspector-General of Antiquities to the Egyptian Government, reported that this was interpreted as Carter's house being broken into by the Royal Cobra, the same as that worn on the King's head to strike enemies (see Uraeus), on the very day the King's tomb was being broken into.An account of the incident was reported by the New York Times on 22 December 1922.

The death of Lord Carnarvon six weeks after the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb resulted in many curse stories in the press

The Anubis figure
 which guarded the
 entrance to Tutankhamun's
 treasury room

The first of the "mysterious" deaths was that of Lord Carnarvon. He had been bitten by a mosquito, and later slashed the bite accidentally while shaving. It became infected and blood poisoning resulted. Two weeks before Carnarvon died, Marie Corelli wrote an imaginative letter that was published in the New York World magazine, in which she quoted an obscure book that confidently asserted that "dire punishment" would follow an intrusion into a sealed tomb. A media frenzy followed, with reports that a curse had been found in the King's tomb, but this was untrue.
Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, suggested at the time that Lord Carnarvon's death had been caused by "elementals" created by Tutankhamun's priests to guard the royal tomb, and this further fueled the media interest.Arthur Weigall reported that, six weeks before Carnarvon's death, he had watched the Earl laughing and joking as he entered the King's tomb and his saying to a nearby reporter (H. V. Morton), "I give him six weeks to live."The first autopsy carried out on the body of Tutankhamun by Dr Derry found a healed lesion on the left cheek, but as Carnarvon had been buried six months previously it was not possible to determine if the location of the wound on the King corresponded with the location of the fatal mosquito bite on Carnarvon.
In 1925, the anthropologist Henry Field, accompanied by Breasted, visited the tomb and recalled the kindness and friendliness of Carter. He also reported how a paperweight given to Carter's friend Sir Bruce Ingham was composed of a mummified hand with its wrist adorned with a scarab bracelet marked with, "Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water and pestilence." Soon after receiving the gift, Ingram's house burned down, followed by a flood when it was rebuilt.
Howard Carter was entirely skeptical of such curses.He did report in his diary a "strange" account that in May 1926 he saw jackals of the same type as Anubis, the guardian of the dead, for the first time in over thirty-five years of working in the desert.
Skeptics have pointed out that many others who visited the tomb or helped to discover it lived long and healthy lives. A study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years. All the others were still alive, including Howard Carter, who later died of lymphoma at the age of 64 in 1939

Possible explanations
Some have speculated that deadly fungus could have grown in the enclosed tombs and been released when they were open to the air. Arthur Conan Doyle favoured this idea, and speculated that the mold had been placed deliberately to punish grave robbers.
A newspaper report printed following Carnarvon's death is also believed to have been responsible for the wording of the curse most frequently associated with Tutankhamun – "Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King" – a phrase which does not actually appear among the hieroglyphs in KV62, even though it was said to appear in several different places.
While there is no evidence that such pathogens killed Lord Carnarvon, there is no doubt that dangerous materials can accumulate in old tombs. Recent studies of newly opened ancient Egyptian tombs that had not been exposed to modern contaminants found pathogenic bacteria of the Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas genera, and the moulds Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus. Additionally, newly opened tombs often become roosts for bats, and bat guano may harbour histoplasmosis. However, at the concentrations typically found, these pathogens are generally only dangerous to persons with weakened immune systems.
Air samples taken from inside an unopened sarcophagus through a drilled hole showed high levels of ammonia, formaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide; these gases are all toxic, but are easily detected by their strong odours. Hydrogen sulfide is detectable at low concentrations (Up to 100PPM) beyond which it acts as a nerve agent on the olfactory senses. At 1000ppm it will kill with a single inhalation.

Deaths popularly attributed to Tutankhamun's 'curse'
The tomb was opened on November 29, 1922.

• Lord Carnarvon, financial backer of the excavation team who was present at the tomb's opening, died on April 5, 1923 after a mosquito bite became infected; he died 4 months, and 7 days after the opening of the tomb.
• George Jay Gould I, a visitor to the tomb, died in the French Riviera on May 16, 1923 after he developed a fever following his visit.
• Egypt's Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey died July 10, 1923: shot dead by his wife.
• Colonel The Hon. Aubrey Herbert, MP, Carnarvon's half-brother, became completely blind and died 26 September 1923 from blood poisoning related to a dental procedure intended to restore his eyesight.
• Woolf Joel, a South African millionaire and visitor to the tomb, died November 13, 1923: shot dead in Johannesburg by blackmailer Baron Kurt von Veltheim whose real name was Karl Frederic Moritz Kurtze.
• Sir Archibald Douglas-Reid, a radiologist who x-rayed Tutankhamun's mummy, died January 15, 1924 from a mysterious illness.
• Sir Lee Stack, Governor-General of Sudan, died November 19, 1924: assassinated while driving through Cairo.
• A. C. Mace, a member of Carter's excavation team, died in 1928 from arsenic poisoning
• The Hon. Mervyn Herbert, Carnarvon's half brother and the aforementioned Aubrey Herbert's full brother, died May 26, 1929, reportedly from "malarial pneumonia".
• Captain The Hon. Richard Bethell, Carter's personal secretary, died November 15, 1929: found smothered in his bed.
• Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury, father of the above, died February 20, 1930; he supposedly threw himself off his seventh floor apartment.
• Howard Carter opened the tomb on February 16, 1923, and died well over a decade later on March 2, 1939; however, some have still attributed his death to the 'curse'

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_pharaohs