The Curse That Killed a Lord - February 16, 1923

On February 16, 1923, Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's burial chamber, revealing intact treasures from a pharaoh who had been dead for over 3,000 years. The archaeological triumph was quickly overshadowed by the "curse of the pharaohs" myth after Lord Carnarvon's death. Both the science and the superstition reveal truths about how we grapple with disturbing the dead questions that remain urgent today in debates over museum repatriation, cultural respect, and the ethics of displaying human remains.