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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily

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the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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A play was written many years ago in memory of a long dead Egyptian king.

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Two young women were chosen to play the leading roles.

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The play was the whim of an American writer who thought to poke fun at ancient Egyptian superstition.

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Legend had it that the priests of Egypt cursed their dead king to wander aimlessly through eternity.

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They did this by forbidding anyone to speak his name.

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We call out the name Akhenaten.

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That night, both women had eerie dreams about the cursed king Akhenaten,

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one that she was struck across the face.

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In the morning, she was nearly blind.

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Coincidence? Or was there another force involved?

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A curse working its evil way after nearly 4,000 years.

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Egypt. It was already a great nation 3,000 years before Christ was born.

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Its kings built enormous monuments during their lifetimes.

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By the 20th century, 33 royal tombs had been excavated in the Valley of the Kings.

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The most exciting discovery, however, was still to come.

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It would be the culmination of a sequence of events that began not in Egypt,

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but in the green fields of England.

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The Berkshire Downs.

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High Clear Castle is the ancestral home of the Earls of Canarbon.

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The Lord who presided here in the first quarter of this century would help make history.

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It would cost him dearly, however.

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The Earl did not leave the comfort of his castle and embark on the adventurous trail by choice.

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A curious chain of events compelled him to go to Egypt.

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The present Lord Canarbon remembers very well how it began.

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First of all, my father had a serious accident in Germany, motor accident,

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and he was rather badly injured.

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He also suffered from rather weak lung, so his doctors said to him,

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it doesn't matter where you go, but you must go to a dry, warm climate every year from now on in the winter months.

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So Papa said to himself, well, that's a fine kettle of fish. He liked shooting and everything else.

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So we decided that he'd go off in the shooting season by the beginning of February and he went to Egypt.

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The rhythm of life along the Nile was a radical change for the Earls.

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After he'd been there a few months, Lord Comer was sent for him and said,

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my dear Portschee, he said, if you're coming out here regularly, you're going to be so bored,

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you'll know what to do with yourself.

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So Ma'am, make a suggestion, yes, indeed, I'd be honored if you'd tell me what to do.

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Right, he said, why don't you take up as a hobby Egyptology?

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He said, it's very interesting, and what's more?

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He said, it happens that at this moment of time I've got a very fellow who will help you best.

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He happens to be an awfully nice young man called Howard Carter.

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Howard Carter was an intense driven man.

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After 15 years with the British civil service in Egypt,

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he'd been fired for refusing to apologize to his superior.

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Carter stayed on in Egypt because he had a dream.

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By the time Lord Canargan returned to England, he'd agreed to bankroll that dream.

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15 years after the bargain was struck, Carter still labored in the Valley of the Kings.

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His dream? To find the tomb of King Tutankhamen.

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Professional archaeologists thought the Valley had been picked clean years before.

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Carter disagreed.

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The search was exasperating.

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Canargan was threatening to cut the money off.

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When in November 1922, Carter unearthed a staircase.

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At the bottom, a door with royal seals intact.

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The door had been sealed more than 3,000 years before.

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Carter couldn't be sure he'd found Tutankhamen's tomb.

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But whatever lay behind the door was bound to make his years of toil worthwhile.

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And at that moment, he got to the stage where he was able to see that there really was

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the jackpot, the hopes that they'd worked for all those years.

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They uncovered the steps, the first steps.

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And at that stage, he thought the only thing to do is to quickly cable to my father.

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Tell him to come out, which he did.

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Carter waited patiently for Canargan's arrival.

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Together, they breached the door.

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Can you see anything Canargan asked?

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Then slowly the answer.

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Yes, wonderful things.

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Wonderful indeed.

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Carter's vision and Canargan's patience had paid off.

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Beyond treasure, there was the undisturbed body of a long dead king.

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A resting place of Tutankhamen, Pharaoh of Egypt.

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At last, Carter was face to face with his dream.

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Around Tutankhamen's neck, a magnificent gold collar.

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Carter recognized it as the vulture goddess Neckbet, a warning to intruders.

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There were reports of another warning on a tablet that has since vanished.

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Death will slay with his wings whoever distorts.

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The king's vision and vision were both in the eyes of the king.

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The king's vision and vision were both in the eyes of the king.

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He was with his wings whoever disturbs the rest of the Pharaoh.

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There was little time to worry about curses.

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A head laid the enormous task of cataloging the treasure.

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Carter and Canargan were apparently not the first to enter the tomb after it was sealed.

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There was evidence that someone had rummaged around.

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Then fled.

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Perhaps ancient tomb robbers frightened by the curse.

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Carter gathered up the great treasure thieves had abandoned.

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Evidence that Tutankhamen reigned in the glory days of Egypt's past.

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He ruled from about 1334 to 1325 B.C.

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He was the first to enter the tomb of the king.

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He was the first to enter the tomb of the king.

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He was the first to enter the tomb of the king.

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In 1525 B.C.

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Tutankhamen was nine when he became Pharaoh. Not yet twenty when he died.

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In those days

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Egypt exacted tribute from Asiatic princes

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and carried on an active trade with the Mediterranean kingdom of Minoa.

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Word of the discovery of Tutankhamen's treasure spread quickly.

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Tourists were becoming a problem.

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Lord Canargan returned to Cairo with part of the treasure.

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He had no way of knowing it, but he would never see England again.

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Fever

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brought on by an infected mosquito bite ravaged the earl's body.

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When I arrived there was my father

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pulse beating in his throat. You could see he

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very bloodshot eyes obviously rightfully feverish and ill.

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So I say to the nurse whatever happens

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of heaven's sake call me.

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The young Canargan went to his own room as his father fought what was to be the last

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battle of his life.

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Shoros fate about five to two

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the good lady is shaking me awake and she said

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your father's drawn his last breath. Please come

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quickly.

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Something was wrong with the lights.

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A young Canargan was

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in the middle of the night.

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Along with the lights and young Canargan needed a flashlight to find his way

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to the earl's bedside.

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Music

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Music

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Music

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Officially the cause of Canargan's death would be pneumonia.

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The Egyptian press had another explanation.

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Your father disturbed the remains

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of King Tutankhamen.

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Music

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Music

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He took his revenge and he was responsible

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for the whole of the lights in Cairo going

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out at exactly the moment he died.

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Lord Canargan was only the first of many

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who would die shortly after visiting the tomb of Tutankhamen.

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Music

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The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb was a great event

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but the sudden and mysterious death of Lord Canargan had cast a

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pall on the celebration. Canargan's grieving son returned to

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England only to find new evidence that his father might have unleashed some

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malevolent force which cost him his life.

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Already the popular press was proclaiming Lord Canargan's

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death to be the revenge of the mummy. His son took refuge behind the walls

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of high clear castle. The memory

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of that awful night in Cairo would not so easily be shaken.

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Music

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I had a little fox terrier bitch called Susie and when I got back

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to the old fashioned housekeeper Mrs. McClain said to me

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I have something to tell you my lord. A really

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extraordinary happening. At 5 minutes to 4

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and as you know Cairo time is 2 hours. It's about to out in front of Cairo

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she said Susie sat

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up on her hind legs. Her mouth was covered in foam

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she let out a howl like a wolf and fell back dead.

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Music

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Something of a panic set in. Collectors rushed to get rid of whatever

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Egyptian relics they possessed. Howard Carter's assistant Richard

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Bethel died suddenly of a circulatory collapse.

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Bethel's father Lord Westbury committed

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suicide. The chief Egyptologist that both Paris's

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Louvre and New York's Metropolitan Museum died shortly

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after visiting the tomb. American financier J. Gould

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took ill and died within days of seeing Tutankhamen's

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final resting place. To date 22 deaths

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have been associated with the curse.

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Music

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Oxford University became the center for an exhaustive

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study of the relics removed from Tutankhamen's tomb. And for

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an investigation of the curse many now believed was real.

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Music

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Oxford's Ashmolean Museum is still one of the richest repositories of Egyptian antiquities.

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Music

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Historian Henry Lincoln is a frequent visitor. It's very easy with our

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20th century skeptical materialistic minds to dismiss

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the curse of the pharaohs as absolute rubbish.

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Well it is just that absolute rubbish.

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Death to anyone who enters this tomb is a

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pretty fierce curse to somebody with a superstitious mind that it's just a threat.

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And a pretty ineffectual one at that. And we all

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know that the curse of the pharaohs was concocted

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by the popular press because Lord Carnarvon had sold the rights to the

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discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb to the times. And the other papers wanted

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something sensational to write about. But the Egyptians

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a curse wasn't rubbish.

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Tutankhamen's figured largely in thinking about the curse.

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And it was Tutankhamen's father-in-law who in fact

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was cursed to wander in all eternity

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by the priests of Amon.

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The Rams head god Amon Ra was dominant in Egypt before the reign of Arcanaton.

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Arcanaton introduced the practice of sun worship

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symbolized by a new god, Aton.

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The priests of Amon was stripped of their power.

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Under this new religion only the pharaoh

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could commune directly with Aton. The temples of Amon

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were defaced but the priests bided their time.

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The old religion and the old ways went underground.

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Egypt's peasants apparently also maintained their loyalty to Amon.

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Arcanaton died in the 17th

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year of his reign. His tomb has never been found.

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Even as the young Tutankhamen was ascending the throne, the priests

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of Amon moved to regain their power.

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Arcanaton's name was eradicated from great monuments. His likenesses

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destroyed.

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As an artist Joseph Lindon Smith working in the tombs taking copies of the wall

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paintings at the time the Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered.

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He felt it would be a good thing to intercede with the gods on behalf of

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Arcanaton and to lift the curse of Amon Ra

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so that the pharaoh was no longer condemned to wander forever in eternity.

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He was going to do this by putting on a play.

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Music

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The ruler is born like the actor

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and will endure for eternity if only we speak

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his name.

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We call out the name Arcanaton.

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Arcanaton.

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Arcanaton.

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Arcanaton.

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Arcanaton.

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Arcanaton.

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At the final dress rehearsal something unheard of happened.

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At the moment when Arcanaton's own prayer was being

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spoken a colossal hail storm began.

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To the Egyptian helpers who were there for the play it was as if the gods were throwing stones at them.

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The rehearsal had to be abandoned.

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The two women who were playing Arcanaton and his mother

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both that night had the same dream.

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Each dreamt that she was standing in a temple dedicated to Amon Ra

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and the statue of the god came to life

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and struck them.

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But for each woman there was one small difference in the dream. One of the women was struck across the stomach

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and the other across the face. Within 48 hours

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the one who had been struck across the body was having a serious

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abdominal operation and the one who had been struck across the face

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had the most virulent case of trachoma ever seen in a European.

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She almost lost her sight.

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Everybody associated with that little play within that period of

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48 hours had been struck down by some minor illness

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or other. Was that the curse

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of the priests of Amon? Still working

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after all those thousands of years.

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And if it wasn't the curse, what was it?

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A new chapter to the mystery of the mummy's curse opened in 1976

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at the Paris airport. The occasion was an eerie state

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visit. The mummy of King Ramsey was arriving with

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a rampant circumstance due to a chief of state. Something terrible

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was happening to the mummy and Egypt wanted France to help.

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The mummy was taken to the museum of man in Paris

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in a sealed laboratory Egyptologists gathered.

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The Ramsey's mummy was among the most perfectly

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preserved of all those found in the Valley of the Kings. Now it

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was beginning to deteriorate rapidly. The Egyptians wanted

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to know if Ramsey's could be saved.

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Tutankhamen's mummy had been ravished by the time of its discovery.

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Some theorize the priests of Amon deliberately

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thwarted the embalming procedure. There has been no public

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announcement to date about what the French experts found when they unwrapped the body

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of Ramsey's.

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The speculation has been that a dangerous

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bacteria perhaps dormant for thousands of years

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is now alive and at work on the mummy.

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Egypt's priests knew something of biology.

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Perhaps they knew more than modern men imagine.

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In the tomb of Tutankhamen were many wonderful vessels

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of gold and alabaster. They were apparently designed to hold

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precious liquids and rare ungwants. If they contained

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something else, something lethal, the secret died

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with the last priest of Amon Ra.

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1977 affords millions of Americans

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the opportunity to see Tutankhamen's treasures. They are on

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special loan from the Egyptian government and will tour museums

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in Washington D.C., Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles,

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Seattle, and New York. 55 works of art

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from what many consider the greatest archaeological find in history.

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Time has eroded much of the mystery and

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awe which grip discoverers Carter and Canarbon.

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The curse is probably rubbish after all.

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Perhaps the priests of Amon Ra tasted enough

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vengeance with the deaths of Lord Canarbon and some of his close associates.

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After all, Howard Carter lived out a long and happy life

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and he was the first to break the seals on Tutankhamen's tomb.

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If the priests of Amon sought to obliterate

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the memory of Akhenaten and his heir Tutankhamen, they failed.

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Their names have been rediscovered and spoken again and again.

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To a Pharaoh, that was assurance of immortality.

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Life symbolized by the Ankh.

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Hearings probably worn by Tutankhamen

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as a young boy.

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The wooden figures are likenesses of favorite slaves,

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servants for the Pharaoh in the afterlife.

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Other figures guarded the young king's tomb

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for the 3,000 years.

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If we believe the curse, we must believe something else.

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We must believe that in the end, Tutankhamen triumphed

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over the priests of Amon.

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Coming up next,

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the first to break the seal of the seal of the Ankh.

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The first to break the seal of the Ankh.

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The first to break the seal of the Ankh.

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Coming up next, in search of continues with an investigation

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into claims that certain great gems cursed their owners.

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Then 20th century with Mike Wallace reports on America's most notorious hate group,

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the Ku Klux Klan. And later tonight, Mel Gibson

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invented the Hollywood version. Now get the true story of Scotland's

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Braveheart on Histories Mysteries at 8, here on the History Channel

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where the past comes alive.

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Music