The curse of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. The revived mummy of Ramses II

Although the image of a mummy in the human imagination is invariably associated with Ancient Egypt, mummified remains can be found in ancient and modern cultures all over the world. Some mummies survive to this day thanks to the influence environment, while others are the result of human intervention. From ancient animals to sad victims, here you will learn about mummies that, despite their age, are perfectly preserved to this day.

Pharaoh Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279-1213 BC, is considered one of the most influential rulers of Ancient Egypt. In ancient times, Ramesses' body was reburied 5 times due to grave robbers. In modern times, in 1974, scientists discovered that the pharaoh's mummy was deteriorating quickly. Then it was sent to France for examination and restoration. To visit another country, Ramses’ modern passport was needed, so when creating the document, “king (deceased)” was indicated in the “occupation” column. At the Paris airport, the pharaoh's mummy was greeted with all the military honors due to the visit of the head of state.

A well-preserved human body was discovered in 1952 in a peat bog in Denmark. Judging by the cut throat, he was killed and then thrown into the swamp. According to analyses, the man died around 290 BC. e. "The Man from Groball" is considered "one of the most impressive discoveries from early history Denmark" as the mummy is one of the best preserved bog bodies in the world.

An amazingly well-preserved mummy of a hunting dog that likely belonged to the pharaoh's family. When the dog died, it was buried in a specially prepared tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

Buried with the dog (previous photo), the baboon keeps little secret, which helps identify it as a pet. X-rays revealed missing fangs, the absence of which may indicate human surgery to prevent the animal from biting forcefully.

A mummy human leg found in a peat bog in 1944. Often, farmers find well-preserved fragments of organic origin in such swamps, the age of which can exceed thousands of years. This is explained by the fact that the environment of peat bogs slows down the growth of bacteria, which is why bodies of organic origin immersed in such bogs are practically not destroyed.

An ancient Egyptian queen's gazelle was mummified and buried with the same lavish care as a member of the royal family. The animal was buried around 945 BC.

This mummy was found in Lima, Peru. After death, the Incas embalmed some bodies of the deceased or wrapped them in cloth. And the arid climate contributed to the mummification of bodies.

The female pharaoh Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for almost 22 years. While Hatshepsut's tomb was discovered in 1903, her mummy was only identified in 2006. This discovery was declared "the most important in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb."

The mummified remains of two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo have survived to this day practically unchanged. The girl died of pneumonia in 1920 - her father was so worried about the death of his daughter that he turned to the famous embalmer, Dr. Alfredo Salafia, with a request to preserve Rosalia's body from decomposition. It was only in the 2000s that the first signs of decomposition of the mummy began to appear, so the body was moved to a drier place and enclosed in a glass container filled with nitrogen.

There was a wave of deaths among the expedition members and their entourage that followed the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Soon after the results of the excavations were announced in the press, a major industrial businessman in England, Joel Wolfe, went to Egypt to inspect the treasury of all times.

He forced Carter, who was in charge of the expedition, to give him permission to examine the burial crypt. He spent almost the entire day there, and upon returning to the hotel he died suddenly. The symptoms were still the same: chills, high fever, loss of reason and rapid death.

Who's next for the curse?

The X-ray examination of the mummy removed from the golden sarcophagus of Tutankhamun was entrusted to Archibald Juglas Reed. His work was carried out flawlessly and was highly praised by experts. But as soon as he arrived home, he felt a sharp attack of nausea, weakness, and after two hours of delirium he died.

Over the course of several years, one by one, all the members of the expedition who carried out excavations and extracted treasures from the tomb, and those who were involved in the study of the mummy of the pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, died. There are 22 people in total. For all of them, death was equally unpredictable and fleeting. The curse of the pharaoh did not spare doctors, linguists, world-famous historians: La Flor, Callender, Winlock, Estori...

A few years later, in 1929, Carnarvon’s widow died, according to doctors, “from a mosquito bite.” Carter's assistant Richard Bathell, a young, healthy man, suffered heart failure. Egypt was in panic. The story of the pharaoh's curse spread throughout Europe. Following them, the lord’s brother and the nurse who was present at the death of the philanthropist died. People passed away who had in no way touched the archaeological discovery and had never been to. Carter calmly received reports of their deaths.

A confirmed bachelor, he was worried only about the participation of his pet, who shared with him his Cairo living space - the nightingale. On the day when Carter's colleague and prominent scientist Richard Batelle died from an incurable and unknown disease, the archaeologist did not find his bird in the cage. He noticed only the scales of a silver snake hastily crawling out the window. He regretted his friend for a long time and did not accept the message that Batelle died due to blockage of the blood vessels in the lungs. Carter turned out to be the only long-liver who was not touched by the curse of the pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

The mummy of Ramses II has come to life!

After the incident with Batell, turmoil began in Cairo. People were frightened by an unknown disease that spares no one. The workers of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II was transported in 1886, also knew about these rumors.

The evening was hot. Stuffiness accumulated in the hall with the collection of sarcophagi of the National Museum of Antiquities. After sunset, the building's electric lights were turned on. And then something irreparable happened. A drawn-out sound was released from the sarcophagus where the mummy of the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II was kept. The hinges of the tomb creaked. And then those present saw a picture that made everyone tremble. The mouth of the king's mummy was twisted with an inaudible scream. The body trembled, the embalming bandages burst, and the arms crossed on the chest straightened, hitting the glass lid of the sarcophagus with force. The fragments scattered in different directions. People rushed up the stairs in panic, and some of the guests jumped out the window.

In the morning press all the circumstances of this shocking event were discussed with gusto. However, the Ministry of Antiquities in its comments indicated that in fact the explanation for this strange “behavior of the mummy” is quite simple. The crowd of people in the hall created unbearable stuffiness and humidity. And the mummy should be kept in the dry air of a cool tomb.

Whatever the climatic conditions, the mummy froze, turning his head in a northern direction - towards the Valley of the Kings. The broken glass was soon replaced. The hands were swaddled as before in a cruciform position. However, the face of the pharaoh of Ancient Egypt remained turned to the north.

Doctors have unraveled the mystery of the pharaohs' curse

35 years after the death of the English philanthropist who financed the excavations in the Valley of the Kings, and thanks to whom the tomb of Tutankhamun became known to the world, scientists managed to find out what caused his sudden death. And the death of several expedition members and people close to them. Geoffrey Dean, Chief Medical Officer at Port Elizabeth Hospital South Africa, found a virus - a fungus that caused the symptoms present in patients: dizziness, weakness, loss of reason.

Any animal, including bats, could become distributors of pathogenic microorganisms. They were the permanent inhabitants of the chambers of the pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. This disease is transmitted by the respiratory route, so Lord Carnarvon’s nurse soon suffered the same fate.

Conclusion on the cause of death of the expedition members

In 1962, after the announcement of the results of Dr. Dean's research on pathogenic bacteria, physician Ezzeddine Taha from Cairo University convened a special meeting. It was dedicated to his discovery of the secret of the curse of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. For a long time, Dr. Taha monitored the health of archaeologists and staff members of the Egyptian Museum who worked with the mummy. In their lungs, he discovered the presence of microscopic fungi Aspergillus niger, which remained closed for a long time in pyramids and tombs. The scientist concluded that now you can quite safely go in search of new treasures, since there is a vaccine against these pathogenic bacteria.

Perhaps science would become aware real reasons the death of Lord Carnarvon and the team members, if he himself had not suffered the same fate: the curse destroyed Taha.

A deserted road in the middle of the sand between Cairo and Suez. A car passing by here is a rarity. No road markings, signs, sharp turns or descents. Dr. Taha and his two colleagues traveled along this road to Suez. An accident occurred on the road, they crashed into a limousine: all three died on the spot, the passengers and the driver of the other car were not injured. During the autopsy, an embolism was discovered in the doctor’s respiratory tract - a rupture of the vessels of the respiratory tract...

Video about Ancient Egypt. The curse of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

On April 5, 1923, George Carnarvon, a British aristocrat and amateur Egyptologist who financed archaeologist Howard Carter's excavations in the Valley of the Kings, died at the Continental Savoy in Cairo. They talked about an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances: a mosquito bite and the subsequent careless gesture with a razor, and then blood poisoning, pneumonia and death, which caused real panic among the Cairo elite. Of course: barely all the world's newspapers had time to report on the unique discovery in the Valley of the Kings - the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, preserved almost in its original form - when one of the main characters of the event dies in the prime of life, at the age of 56. Unlike many other tombs that were plundered already in the 19th century, only ancient Egyptian thieves visited the tomb of Tutankhamun, leaving behind a lot of valuables. Correspondents familiarly called the pharaoh of the 18th dynasty the Boy Pharaoh or simply Tut. The story of the discovery itself was amazing: for seven years Howard Carter, financed by Carnarvon, dug up the Valley of the Kings in search of an unlooted tomb - and only in November 1922, when Carnarvon was about to stop funding, did he discover one.

Then the devilry began: Egyptologist and Daily Mail correspondent Arthur Weigall, who covered the story from the very beginning, wrote that Carter’s bird was eaten by a cobra, a symbol of the pharaoh’s power, shortly after the opening of the tomb. It was also said that Carnarvon’s dog died at the same time in his family estate, Highclere (today better known from the TV series “Downton Abbey”). Upon learning of Carnarvon's death, readers quickly correlated one with the other - and the curse of the tomb became a reality. Weigall, who in every possible way denied its existence, died in 1934 at the age of 54 and was willingly listed among the victims of the tomb.

Funeral mask of Tutankhamun. Photo from 1925

Howard Carter, Arthur Callender and an Egyptian worker in the burial chamber of Tutankhamun's tomb. 1924© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Objects found in the tomb. 1922© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Howard Carter and Arthur Callender wrap the statue before transport. 1923© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Bust of the goddess Mehurt and chests in the treasury of Tutankhamun's tomb. 1926© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Howard Carter examines the inner coffin, made of solid gold. 1925© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Ceremonial bed in the shape of a Celestial Cow and other items in the tomb. 1922© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Howard Carter examines the lid of the second (middle) coffin in the tomb's burial chamber. 1925© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Arthur Mace and Alfred Lucas examine one of the chariots found in the tomb. 1923© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Alabaster vases in the tomb. 1922© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

An ark with a statue of the god Anubis on the threshold of the treasury. 1926© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

Howard Carter, Arthur Callender and workers in the burial chamber. 1923© Harry Burton / Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, colored by Dynamicchrome

The media hysteria around Tutankhamun was also explained by the fact that reporters that year did not have many high-profile topics to discuss. The summer was so scant for news that a story about a farmer who grew gooseberries the size of an apple tree made the front pages of leading publications. In addition, Carnarvon sold exclusive rights to cover the opening of the tomb to The Times newspaper, which caused a storm of protests from other reporters and only exacerbated the race for sensations. One of the American shipping companies even introduced additional flights to Egypt so that all interested tourists could quickly get to Luxor. As a result, Carter was so tormented by the press and onlookers besieging the excavations that he once even blurted out in his hearts: “It would be better if I never found this tomb!”

Despite the fact that no curse messages were found either at the entrance to the tomb or in the burial room, the legend continued to circulate and only gained momentum when someone in any way connected with the tomb died. The number of alleged "victims of the curse" varies from 22 to 36 people; however, according to data published in The British Medical Journal, the average age of the deceased was 70 years. “Tutmania,” as they said then, also swept the film industry - in 1932, the film “The Mummy” was released with the main actor of horror films, Boris Karloff.

According to popular belief, it was the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb that began the legends of curses that were later capitalized on by science fiction writers and Hollywood. However, given this explanation, what is surprising is the readiness with which educated Europeans throughout the first half of the 20th century spread incredible stories about mummies and pharaohs. In reality, this was because by 1923, scary tales of vengeful mummies and ancient Egyptian curses had been part of popular Orientalist folklore for more than a century.

On July 21, 1798, French troops met the Mamluk army in the shadow of the Great Pyramids of Giza, a testament to the greatness of the Old Kingdom. The prologue to the Battle of the Pyramids is considered to be the famous monologue of Napoleon Bonaparte:

“Soldiers! You came to these lands to wrest them from barbarism, bring civilization to the East and save this beautiful part of the world from the English yoke. We will fight. Know that forty centuries are looking at you from the heights of these pyramids.”

Despite the fact that the Egyptian campaign ended for Bonaparte with defeat at Aboukir, the triumph of the British fleet and Admiral Nelson personally, Napoleon’s adventure was a success - but not military, but scientific. Not only soldiers, but also a whole army of scientists—167 people—went with him to the banks of the Nile: the best French mathematicians, chemists, physicists, geologists, historians, artists, biologists and engineers. On the spot they founded the main scientific institution of those times for the study of Egypt - Institut d'Égypte. Under his auspices, a series of publications “Description de l’Égypte” was published, from which many Europeans first learned about great history ancient civilization. The British also developed a taste for Egyptian antiquities, who, after the victory in Aboukir, received many French trophies, including the famous Rosetta Stone  A stone slab found by a French captain in 1799 in Egypt, near the city of Rosetta. Three identical texts are engraved on the slab: one is written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the other in ancient Greek, and the third in demotic writing, the cursive script of Ancient Egypt. By comparing them, linguists were able to decipher the hieroglyphs for the first time.. Obelisks, elegant statues of gods and pharaohs, funerary and ritual objects left Egypt on French and British ships. Excavations, not regulated by any authorities, bordering on vandalism, created an extensive market for the trade in antiquities - before they even appeared on the market, the best exhibits immediately ended up in the private collections of wealthy aristocrats in London and Paris.

In 1821, the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I, better known as the Tomb of Belzoni, in honor of the archaeologist and traveler Giovanni Belzoni, who was responsible for the discovery in 1817, was recreated in a theater near Piccadilly. During the show, the attraction was visited by thousands of Londoners. The English poet Horace Smith, who competed with the poet Shelley in writing sonnets dedicated to the Nile, composed “Address to the Mummy” - it was publicly read at the exhibition.

Unwrapping mummies imported from Egypt became a popular social pastime in the 1820s. Invitations to such events looked like this: “Lord Londesborough at Home: A Mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past Two.”

Real surgeons were responsible for the technical part of the performance. Thomas Pettigrew, nicknamed The Mummy, was considered the main expert in the field of mummy unwrapping. Pettigrew has publicly unwrapped more than 30 mummies throughout his illustrious career.

In 1824, the architect of the Bank of England, Sir John Soane, bypassed the British Museum and bought the elegant alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I for 2,000 pounds (the mummy was found only in 1881).

On the occasion of the purchase, Soane threw a large-scale soiree: for three evenings, in a room furnished with oil lamps for greater effect, representatives of the London establishment raised their glasses to Seti I. It got to the point that entire alleys in cemeteries were decorated in the style of the Luxor Valley of the Kings. In the Parisian cemetery of Père Lachaise, opened by order of Napoleon in 1804, today you can see several outstanding examples of Egyptomania, in particular the graves of members of the Napoleonic expedition - mathematicians Joseph Fourier and Gaspard Monge. Not far from them stands the obelisk of Jean François Champollion, the young French genius who deciphered the Rosetta Stone in 1822 and laid the foundation for Egyptology.

In England, the funerary fashion for Ancient Egypt is best seen at Highgate Cemetery, opened in 1839. Highgate's Egyptian Avenue has 16 crypts - eight on each side. The entrance to the avenue is decorated with a massive arch framed by large columns in the spirit of the Karnak Temple and two Egyptian obelisks. In the 1820s and 30s, obelisks began to appear on the graves of people who had nothing to do with Egypt - and quickly became an integral part of the Victorian cemetery landscape.

The appearance of Egyptian symbols in European cemeteries is not surprising - almost all the knowledge about Ancient Egypt that scientists and ordinary people had was related to the topic of death: from the construction of tombs and pyramids they learned about the afterlife of the Egyptians, temples told about gods and mythology. Very little was known about the life and everyday life of ordinary people. It turned out that Ancient Egypt was a civilization of great pharaohs and their priests. Hence the mystification, the feeling of mystery and sacredness surrounding Ancient Egypt and everything connected with it.

Despite the fact that the townspeople went in droves and without any fear to look at the mummified bodies of the ancient Egyptians, already in the 1820s the first fears and concerns began to appear. They were reflected in literary works that historians would later call Egyptian Gothic. The first author in this genre was Jane Webb-Ludon. Inspired by London's Egyptomania and Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, she wrote the Gothic horror film The Mummy! "

In addition to being one of the first science fiction writers (the book takes place in the 22nd century in a world filled with incredible technologies, one of which looks suspiciously like the Internet), she also came up with the image of a vengeful mummy. True, in the book of Loudon, the revenge of a mummy named Cheops takes the form of personal revenge rather than a terrible curse that can befall anyone.

Imperial paranoia only fueled the superstitious horror of ancient Egyptian secrets. At the same time, a curious process of adapting the exotic genre to classic Victorian Gothic took place: revived mummies walked through gloomy old mansions with creaking floorboards. However, the very appearance of the mummy in the context of an English mansion looked quite plausible: the British who visited Egypt often brought similar artifacts to their home - to their home museums. In the 1860s, another hybrid genre appeared - ghost stories in an Egyptian setting, such as An Egyptian Ghost Story about ghosts in a Coptic monastery. In the short story “The Story of Balbrow Manor,” published in 1898, an English vampire ghost takes possession of the body of a mummy brought by the owner of the house from Egypt and begins to terrorize the household.

By the end of the 19th century, the political and economic situation in Egypt had noticeably deteriorated. The exorbitant spending of Khedive Ismail, as well as the unjustified trust that the Khedive placed in his European “advisers,” gradually brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. First, the British Prime Minister Disraeli in 1875 made the “purchase of the century” with the money of the London Rothschilds - 47% of the shares of the Suez Canal - and a year later the British and the French established financial control over Egypt and created the Egyptian Debt Fund. In 1882, Great Britain, having suppressed a powerful uprising of the Egyptian officers, occupied the country of the pharaohs.

At the same time, archaeologists are making stunning discoveries in the Theban necropolis. Egypt is becoming even closer to the average person, reading daily newspapers and attending public lectures and salons. It was during this period that Egyptian Gothic experienced a real heyday. In 1898-1899, the novel “Pharos the Egyptian” by Guy Boothby, a close friend of Rudyard Kipling, was published. According to the plot, Pharos is Ptahmes, the high priest of the 19th dynasty pharaoh Merneptah, the son of Ramses II, taking revenge on the English who desecrated his land. The anti-colonial motive (or rather, the fear of it) is felt throughout the entire story. In particular, in the episode about the mummy that the protagonist’s father took from Egypt at one time, the following words appear: “Oh, my friend from the 19th century, your father stole me from my native land and from the grave that was ordained for me by the gods. But beware, for punishment is pursuing you and will soon overtake you.”

A cunning (and probably immortal) priest, dressed as an ordinary Londoner, lures a good-natured Englishman to Egypt, where he infects him with the plague. An unsuspecting European sails back to England - as a result, millions die from the epidemic. But before that, Pharos gives his victim a tour of the English Parliament and private clubs, showing him the corruption of the elite. The amazing plot combines all the hidden fears of a resident of the empire, including the fear of catching a terrible disease in the East - it is no coincidence that a quarantine was established in Port Said for ships traveling to Britain. By an amazing coincidence, the mummy of the real Merneptah was found by archaeologists in 1898, when the author of the novel Boothby was on vacation in Egypt.

From the writings of Egyptian Gothic, one gets the feeling that the elite were most afraid of the revenge of the rebel mummies and pharaohs: in Richard Marsh’s book “The Scarab”, an ancient Egyptian creature that does not have a specific form attacks a member of the British Parliament. Actually, the responsibility of the political elites for establishing the occupation, and later the protectorate, was indisputable - hence the fear of retribution that would overtake them first.

The book was published in the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula and significantly outsold it. Perhaps it was the success of a competitor that inspired Bram Stoker to write his other novel, The Curse of the Mummy, or the Stone of the Seven Stars, which tells the story of how a young lawyer tries to revive the mummy of the Egyptian Queen Thera (in 1971, it was made into the film Blood from the Mummy's Tomb ").

Stories about the deadly mummies of Egyptian queens and priestesses from literary genre gradually passed into the category of popular superstitions - and, on the contrary, superstitions fed literature. So, for several years, a real drama unfolded in the British Museum with a sarcophagus with the unremarkable serial number EA 22542.

The story, overgrown with rumors and fiction, dates back to 1889, when the British Museum received a sarcophagus from a private collector. Upon examination, it became clear that it belonged to a wealthy woman. Egyptologist Wallis Budge, then working in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, identified her in the museum catalog as a priestess of Amun-Ra, presumably of the XXI or XXII dynasty. Despite the fact that the sarcophagus was empty, everyone persistently talked about the mummy and spread strange stories: they say that the British man who bought it in Egypt shot himself in the hand, after which he gave the mummy to his friend - her fiancé soon left her, then her mother fell ill and died, and soon she herself fell ill. After which the “unlucky mummy,” as she was called, ended up in the British Museum. In the museum, the machinations of the mummy did not stop - they said that various unpleasant incidents happened to the photographers who photographed her. The journalist who wrote about it, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, died three years after publication - he was 36 years old. Robinson's close friend Arthur Conan Doyle immediately stated that he was the victim of the mummy's curse. There were even rumors that the museum decided to get rid of the mummy and sent it as a gift to the Metropolitan on the Titanic liner in 1912 - although the sarcophagus has not left the building on Great Russell Street all these years, and can still be viewed today in Hall No. 62 (since the “unlucky mummy” is still popular with the public, sometimes the sarcophagus is taken to temporary exhibitions). By the way, the creator of Sherlock Holmes made his contribution not only to the formation of the legend of the “unlucky mummy”, but also to the genre of Egyptian Gothic: in 1890 he released the short story “The Ring of Thoth”, in which an Egyptologist, who fell asleep while working in the Louvre, discovers himself locked up with mummies and the almost immortal priest of Osiris Sosra. In another Doyle story, “Lot Number 249,” published two years later, a mummy attacks Oxford students: it turns out that she is acting on the orders of one of the students.

Thus, by the 1920s, legends of deadly mummies and curses of the pyramids were firmly entrenched among other popular European ideas about Egypt. So when, in 1923, reporters began reporting that members of the Carter expedition and those involved in the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb were dying one after another, an explanation was quickly found that would appeal to Daily Mail readers. The public, familiar with the stories of Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, if they did not believe in the curse, then willingly discussed it - it was not mummies that came to life, but plots familiar from childhood.

Historians have tried to count how many stories and novels about mummies and curses were published during the entire colonial period before the outbreak of the First World War - it turned out to be something like a hundred. However, Egyptian Gothic was not limited to literature - it created a whole set of rather dubious ideas about Ancient Egypt that continue to be broadcast in pop culture to this day.

Sources

• Beynon M. London's Curse: Murder, Black Magic and Tutankhamun in the 1920s West End.
• Brier B. Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs.
• Bulfin A. The Fiction of Gothic Egypt and British Imperial Paranoia: The Curse of the Suez Canal.

  English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920. Vol. 54. No. 4. 2011.

• Day J The Mummy's Curse: Mummymania in the English-speaking World.
• Hankey J. A Passion for Egypt: Arthur Weigall, Tutankhamun and the “Curse of the Pharaohs”.

  L., N.Y., 2007.

• Luckhurst R. The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy.
• Riggs C. Unwrapping Ancient Egypt.

When a person passes into another world, it is customary to bury his body. But sometimes, for various reasons, people want to preserve the deceased for a longer memory and not in photographs at all...

You won't believe it, but we found 18 dead people, whose bodies are still carefully kept among the living!

1. Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924, Russia)

The father of Russian communism and the first leader of the USSR died almost 100 years ago, but his body looks like Vladimir Ilyich fell asleep and is about to wake up!

Back in 1924, the government decided to preserve the deceased leader for future generations. To do this, they even had to invent a complex embalming process! At the moment, Lenin's body does not have any internal organs (they are replaced with special humidifiers and a pumping system that maintains internal temperature and fluid intake), and requires constant injections and baths.

It is known that during the existence Soviet Union The dead leader’s suits were changed once a year, but after the fall of the communist nation, the leader stopped being fashionable and now “changes” his clothes once every 5 years!

2. Eva "Evita" Peron (1919 - 1952, Argentina)

“Don’t cry for me, Argentina,” Madonna-Evita sang, playing the role of the main and beloved woman of the entire Argentine people, Evita Peron, in the film of the same name.

No, then in 1952 the country did not want to put up with the death of the wife of President Juan Peron. And even more, Eva Peron, who died of cancer, was so skillfully embalmed that the result was later even called the “art of death”!

But indeed, in the dead body there was also more life... You won’t believe it, but the process of preserving the deceased took the specialists almost a year. It is known that after the arrival of the new government, Evita’s body was stolen and hidden in Italy, where the caretaker fell in love with it and could not curb his sexual fantasies!

3. Rosalia Lombardo (1918 – 1920, Italy)

Deep in the catacombs of the Capuchin friars in Sicily, inside a small glass casket lies the body of little Rosalia Lombardo. When the girl died of pneumonia in 1920, her father, General Lombardo, could not cope with the loss. He found embalming specialist Alfredo Salafia, and was ready to give all the money so that only his daughter’s body could be preserved. And thanks to a mixture of chemicals, including formalin, zinc salts, alcohol, salicylic acid and glycerin, a phenomenal result was achieved! After a while, the body was given the name “Sleeping Beauty” and even a buyer was found who bought it!

Look how innocence is preserved on Rosalia's face. And today this mummy is not only the best preserved in the world, but also the most visited in the catacombs.

Well, this x-ray of Rosalia shows that her brain and internal organs are intact, although they have shrunk over time.

4. Lady Xin Zhui (died 163 BC, China)

This deceased woman's name was Xin Zhui, and she was the wife of the imperial viceroy of Changsha County, Marquis Dai, during the Han Dynasty.

Perhaps the woman’s name would have sunk into oblivion if she had not been mummified after death. The body of the Chinese woman was fantastically preserved 2,100 years after her death, and today scientists are scratching their heads over the mystery of the mummy, better known as “Lady Dai.”

Believe it or not, Xin Zhui's skin is still soft, her arms and legs can bend, her internal organs remain intact, and her veins still contain blood. Somehow, the mummy even had eyelashes and hair...Today it has been precisely established that during her lifetime, Xin Zhui was overweight, she suffered from lower back pain, clogged arteries and heart disease.

5. “Virgin” or 500-year-old mummy girl

And you definitely haven’t forgotten this 15-year-old, which has lain in the ice for almost 500 years!

6. Dashi-Dorzho Itigelov (1852-1927, Russia)

If you still don’t believe in miracles, then it’s time to visit Buryatia and look at the incorruptible body of the head of the Buddhists of Eastern Siberia, monk Dashi-Dorzhi Titgelov, who sits in the lotus position.

But, the most amazing thing is that the body is in the open air, and not only does not decompose, but also exudes a fragrance!

7. Man of Tollund (390 BC - 350 BC, Denmark)

Another amazing discovery of the “living” dead is a human body that has lain in the peat bogs of Tollund (Denmark) since the 4th century BC!

The "Man from Tollund" was found in 1950. Then archaeologists determined that the deceased was most likely hanged - he had a swollen tongue, and in his stomach there was a portion of eaten vegetables and seeds!

Alas, time and the swamp preserved the body, but people could not - today only the head, legs and thumb remain intact from the find.

8. Tattooed Princess Ukok (lived around the 5th century AD in Siberia)

Another creepy greeting from the past - Altai princess Ukok.

They found the mummy lying on its side with its legs drawn up.

The princess had numerous tattoos on her arms! But the find was dressed even more interestingly - in a white silk shirt, a burgundy woolen skirt, felt socks and a fur coat. The complex hairstyle of the deceased is also unique - it is made of wool, felt and her own hair and was 90 cm in height. The princess died at a young age (about 25 years old) from breast cancer (during the study, a tumor in the breast and metastases were discovered) .

9. Imperishable Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879, France)

The daughter of a miller, Maria Bernadette was born in Lourdes in 1844.

It is known that for short life(the girl lived for 35 years and died of tuberculosis) the Virgin Mary (the white lady) appeared to her 17 times, during which she indicated where to find a spring with healing water and where to build a temple.

After death and burial, Bernadette Soubirous was canonized, and therefore the body had to be exhumed and embalmed. Since then, it has been buried and exhumed two more times, before finally being placed in a golden reliquary in the chapel and covered in wax.

10. John Torrington (1825 – 1846, UK)

Sometimes nature can preserve a body much better than embalming experts. Here's how, for example, the body of John Torrington, senior officer of the legendary Franklin expedition to the Arctic Circle. The researcher died of lead poisoning at the age of 22 and was buried in the tundra along with three others in a campsite. In the 1980s, Torring's grave was exhumed by scientists in order to find out the reason for the failure of the expedition.

When the coffins were opened and the ice thawed, the archaeologists were amazed and frightened by what they saw - John Torrington was literally looking at them!

11. Beauty Xiaohe (Lived 3800 years ago, China)

In 2003, during excavations ancient cemetery Xiaohe Mudi archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved mummy, named after the location - Beauty Xiaohe.

You won’t believe it, but this beauty in a felt hat, after 4 thousand years of being underground in a coffin-boat with bags of herbs, had intact skin, hair and even eyelashes!

12. Cherchensky man (died about 1000 BC, China)

In 1978, a mummified “Cherchen man” dating back to 1000 BC was found in the Taklamakan desert. e. The Cherchenets was blond with light skin, 2 m tall, dressed in clothes made of European wool. He died at the age of 50.

The discovery of this mummy forced historians to rethink everything they knew about the interaction of Eastern and Western civilizations!

13. George Mallory (1886-1924, UK)

In 1924, climber George Mallory and his partner Andrew Irvine could have been the first to reach the summit of Everest, but, alas... For 75 years, the fate of the dead climbers remained a mystery, and in 1999, the NOVA-BBC expedition managed to discover the well-preserved body of J. . Mallory in clothes torn by the wind!

Researchers found that the two climbers were connected, but Irwin lost his grip and fell.

14. Ramesses II the Great (1303 BC - 1213 BC, Egypt)

The mummy of one of the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt, Ramesses II the Great, is one of the most unique finds of our time. For more than 100 years, scientists have been engaged in a fierce battle to find out the cause of death of a personality of such magnitude. And the answer was found after a computed tomography scan. It turned out that a penetrating cut (7 cm) was found on the pharaoh’s throat all the way to the spine, which affected not only the blood vessels, but also the trachea and esophagus!

15. Wet mummy (lived 700 years ago, China)

In 2011, construction workers were digging the foundation for a new road when they unearthed the mummy of a woman who lived 700 years ago during the Ming Dynasty.

Thanks to the moist soil, the woman’s body was remarkably preserved. Moreover, her skin, eyebrows and hair are not damaged!

But the most impressive thing is the jewelry found on the “wet mummy” - a silver hairpin, a jade ring on a finger and a silver medallion for exorcism.

16. Otzi or ice man from Tyrol (3300 BC -3255 BC, Italy)

Ötzi Iceman (Otzi the Iceman) is the best preserved natural human mummy from around 3300 BC (53 centuries ago). The discovery was made in September 1991 in the Schnalstal glacier in the Ötztal Alps, near Hauslabhoch, on the border between Austria and Italy.

It got its name due to the place where it was discovered. Scientists have found that the cause of death of the “ice man” was most likely a blow to the head. Today his body and belongings are on display at the Museum of Archeology of South Tyrol in Bolzano, northern Italy.

17. Man from Groboll (late 3rd century BC, Denmark)

In the mid-20th century, several perfectly preserved bodies were discovered in a peat bog in Denmark. The most attractive of them, so to speak, turned out to be the “man from Groball”. You won't believe it, but he still had nails on his hands and hair on his head!

Radiocarbon dating of his intact (!) liver showed that he lived more than 2,000 years ago, and died when he was about 30 years old, probably from a deep cut in the neck.

18. Tutankhamun (1341 BC - 1323 BC, Egypt)

Remember, just recently we remembered, and finally found out what Tutankhamun was like during his life.

Today the discovery of the pharaoh's mummy can be considered the most a unique find humanity - well, at least remember that the tomb of Tutankhamun was not plundered by ancient robbers and, in addition, all subsequent hoaxes associated with “curses” after the opening of the tomb by G. Carter.

Only, alas, it is worth admitting that of all the surviving “living” dead, Pharaoh Tutankhamun was not in the most “attractive” form.