Tut-tutting at curse notion

• Published date: 27 May 2023
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times: Web Edition Articles (New Zealand)

The Westminster Gazette remarks: "No poisons have ever yet been found in an Egyptian tomb; and the probability of their secretion in or about a mummy is discounted by the rather unpleasant recollection that mediaeval medicine recognised pounded mummy as a curative substance, and employed it with no evil effects."

On receipt of the news of the ill-health of Mr Howard Carter, who was Lord Carnarvon's right-hand coadjutor, Sir Rider Haggard hoped that it would not give a fillip to superstitious belief.

Sir Rider is a determined opponent of those who profess to see in the death of Lord Carnarvon the workings of some malignant influence. ''If," he has said, ''men are to be at the mercy of elementals or evil powers of an undefined nature, their lot is indeed wretched. Life would be one long terror.

''If we suppose that the opener of the tomb of Tutankhamen was a victim of the work of such a creature, it would be nothing less than a disaster lo mankind. For what can happen in one case can happen in all. It is for this, reason that I say that the promulgation of ideas of this nature is most dangerous. They work upon a certain class of mind, and, perhaps, produce the very evils they prophesy." — ODT London correspondent

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