Expert: Ralph Salier - 10/8/2009

Question
Dear Salier:

Hi, I have a few questions that I would like to know, you could ignore it if it doesn't in your field.

1.   The curse of Tutankhamun is one of the fascinating things in the culture of Ancient Egypt. How did the curse in Ancient Egypt develop? Was the curse true?

2.   There were lots of gods in the Ancient Egyptian culture. How and why did the Ancient Egyptians arrive at these beliefs?

Thank you for reading my questions

Ronchel


Answer
Hi Ron,

All tombs in Egypt had "prayers" in written form that were used to seal the tombs.  These prayers were written in such a way  that if the tomb was disturbed in any way that those who disturb the tomb were given a "death wish".  These could be called curses.  These people were very superstitious and these "curses" worked well, for most people.  They did not work on the grave robbers, they simply ignored these prayers and warnings.  The unique thing about the tomb of Tutankhamon is that it was unusually well hidden and the robbers never found it.  Thus when it was opened, the full regalia was intact.  Now what killed Carmarven and some of the others?  Well as you can well imagine, a tomb that has been closed up for thousands of years may contain all kinds of ancient diseases.  And this one did.  Mold spores from a rather deadly mold is what killed those that died.  In the 1920's there were no treatments for fungal lung diseases.  Was this part of the curse? no.  It just happened that way.  The artifacts are now free of the spores and are quite safe to work with.

As for your second question.  Why did the Ancient Egyptians have so many Gods?  For the same reason that the Hindus have many gods, Bon people have many gods, the Shinto have many gods.  These are based on old animistic beliefs that all creatures, the land scape, trees etc... all are imbued with a spirit.  Thus when you  go out hunting and you kill an animal, you pray to the spirit of the animal for forgiveness.  You make an offering to thank the animal for giving its life so that you may live.  Or if you take a tree to build a canoe or a temple, you give an offering to the spirit of the tree,  thanking it for its life and its new life as part of the temple or canoe.... So in the same way the Egyptians saw spirits in every thing and to keep from offending any of them, they developed a highly complex religious belief system.  Now King Tut, was the son of a Pharaoh that tried to dismantle this belief system.  In fact Akhenaten (Amenhotep), was a monotheist!  He tried to establish Aten or the sun god as the only god.  (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten)  

In Ancient Egyptian religious views, some of the gods were more powerful then others and there was a hierarchy.  For some sects, Ra was the supreme God and  the others simply demigods, for others Seth or Hoth were the supreme gods.  They each represented some aspect important to the life ways of those people.  Temples were built to honor them etc... Most people had small shrines in their homes with a statue (graven image) of their favorite deity.  These were honored with small gifts etc... During important days of the year like the beginning of harvest or planting the gods would be brought out and paraded around the fields to improve fertility, a good harvest etc...  Just as today we might pray to God for a good harvest or a good growing season or what ever our needs are.

I hope this all makes sense.  If you have more questions, please don't be afraid to ask.