Magic in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptians firmly believed in “heka”, the power of magic,  Nothing in the Universe was conceived without being animated by that power. The gods, the magicians and the pharaoh possessed heka, they had that magical power linked to Creation itself, which held it upright, and which allowed them to manipulate the Universe. 

The magicians  fulfilled an important function in the Court, interpreting the dreams of the pharaoh, offering him advise, performing rituals and spells to help him in his endeavors.

The Egyptians believed that before the world was formed, there was a watery mass of dark, directionless chaos. (Like the sky at night) In this chaos lived the Ogdoad, four frog gods and four snake goddesses of chaos. (we know that during the first act of creation of a baby the sperm appears as a snake) the ogdoad represented  balance in infinity, they were thought to have helped with creation, then died and retired to the land of the dead where they continued to make the Nile flow and the sun rise every day.

Every night, Ra, the sun god, crosses the sky in his boat and the horizon disappears from view, through the West to emerge again, strong, glorious, rejuvenated, through the East. But his journey through the underworld is fraught with danger. The forces of Chaos associated with the primitive Ocean do not rest in their endeavor to submerge the Universe back to the “Nun” from which it arose.

And before being able to be reborn in the East, the Sun God has to face the incarnation of those powers of Chaos, the fearsome and colossal serpent Apep, which attacks the solar boat every night.

Joining the God Ra on this fearsome journey each night, Heka who was represented as a God, and  had the power of magic,  was able to confront the Terry firing Serpent Apep to safeguard the companions in the boat of the Sun god and save the entire Universe each night, on Ra's journey through the underworld

Heka is represented as a god, on the solar Boat of Ra where he accompanies Ra and protects him. Meanwhile, on earth, the magician priests perform rites and acts of magic to help the god and his companions to travel safely through the hours of the night.

Try and imagine the tombs with an invisible passage of water that flows within a dark tunnel of fear and chaos that could ultimately lead you to the light and eternity. A golden barque that has soaked in the rays of the sun during the hours of the day will now be empowered to travel through the darkness of the night on this eternal carrier of light, and it waits for you. Your   mortal body is dead, you are incapable of speech, you cannot move,  you are traveling across the waters of chaos, you are helpless, you sense a macabre fear of something enclosing you in the water, suddenly the water begins to drain away, a demon snake known as Apophis has guzzled the water, and your barque is becoming trapped in sandbanks, but they are not sandbanks they are the obese fat crushing coils of this  gigantic snake that will trap the barque, while its demon eyes  will hypnotize the crew, enabling the snake to swallow their heads engulfing them in everlasting darkness. Panic and chaos ensues, help is desperately needed, the companions on the barque struggle to fight off this vile creature, that has swum in the waters of chaos for eternity, In the battle Heka stands on the prow of the boat his divine magic was given to the human race by Ra and with his magical incantations he will exorcise the snake, subduing it to his power.  Ra then calls for Set, the god of Darkness, war and Chaos to help them kill the snake whilst Heka has it in his spell

Bad Magics

Heka could be used for good and bad, During the reign of Ramses 111 Magics was used to try and kill the king. Towards the end of Ramses 111 rule, a Lower wife Tiy was found to be the main culprit in a death plot against Ramses; she had hoped to see her son Pertwere succeed to the throne. A  priest who practiced the arts of  magic created wax figurines potions and wrote magical spells , In ancient Egypt words were magical, and had the power to evoke the  of power  life and death. The spells cast against Ramses and the black magic did not kill him unfortunately for the conspirators of this devious plot, their intentions were considered as deadly and as serious as an actual physical assault on Ramses, the magic invoked was as terrible a threat as trying to cut him down with a sword. Thirty conspirators of the harem were put on trial, they were sentenced to death and told to commit suicide in front of the court or in their cells, after their trial, ten judges also faced trial for having taken meals with the accused during the trials, they were condemned to have their ears and nose cut off. 

The Magicians Box Found in the Grounds of the Mortuary Temple of Ramses the Great - The Rammessium

The Rammessium magician's box was discovered in 1885–1886 in a tomb close to  the Rammessium by Flinders Petrie and James Quibell, it contained papyri and items related to magical practices.  On the Papyri written in Hieratic,  the texts contain different spells ranging from medical care, protection of children, and charms for daily life protection. There are also copies of hymns to Sobek and for the coronation of King Senusret I, suggesting this magician also served as a high priest. The lid of the Box had the God Anubis painted on it, which meant  that it was  a box of secrets,  Four ivory wands were discovered in the magician's box, these were made from Hippopotamus ivory. The main discovery in the box is the papyri and the reed pens, which were probably used to write the texts. The text is written in hieratic, with a structure of horizontal and vertical lines. Women, on average, lived two to four years less than men because of complications during labor. Because of this, many spells and amulets were created to protect women and children.  A serpent wand made of bronze and entangled in human hair was found in the box. Serpent wands have been found in tombs from the Late Period. Serpents are considered mysterious and they have connections to both the earthly world and the underworld.

Certain Gods and Goddesses had the power of Magic, the Goddess Isis was the  Egyptian Goddess of magic, fertility, and healing, Isis is the bravery found inside the ferocity of every mother, And the song inside every mourner’s heart, .She is the calm and healing waters after a rough night’s storm, ,And the wild feral beauty inside every woman’s soul, Isis is pleasure and pain, life and death, beauty and disgrace all wrapped up inside one powerful, beating heart, .She is the reminder to every woman everywhere that no man, no person, nobody can ever snuff out your spark. For you are the spark

Isis was as one of the most powerful deities in all of ancient Egypt and was known for finding her dismembered husband Osiris' body parts and putting them all together once she had travelled all over Egypt to find them, Osiris came back to life with her magic, but the God Ra decided that he could not live in the mortal world anymore, so he became the God of the Underworld. Isis was believed to be powerful in the ways of magic, having the ability to create and destroy life with mere words. She not only knew the words which needed to be spoken to cause certain things to occur, but was also able to use exact pronunciation and emphasis in order for the desired effect to occur. It is believed that if the best effect was to be produced by words of power they must be uttered in a certain tone of voice, and at a certain rate, and at a certain time of the day or night, with appropriate gestures or ceremonies. Only when these conditions have been met can true magic occur. Her reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and have power over fate itself. The worship of Isis was ended by the rise of Christianity in the fourth through sixth centuries of the Rule of the Romans in Egypt. 

Childbirth and early infancy were felt to be particularly threatening to both mother and baby. Magic played the primary role in countering these threats; various evil spirits needed to be warned off, and deities invoked to protect the vulnerable. These magic knives, also known as apotropaic (that is, acting to ward off evil) wands, were one of the devices used. They are usually made of hippopotamus ivory, thus enlisting the support of that fearsome beast & the Goddess Taweret  against evil. Amulets of Taweret were popular, used by the expectant mother because of Taweret's protective powers. 

Another way that Taweret was thought to scare away evil that could hurt a mother and child was through the use of magic. She was associated with the magic 'wand' or 'knife' that the Egyptians used because she was a hippopotamus goddess:

Thoth is the Egyptian god of writing, magic and knowledge. Thoth was Egyptian god of knowledge, wisdom, writing, mathematics, science, magic, truth, integrity, time, and the Moon

Depictions of Thoth usually show him as a man with the head of an ibis, all though at other times he may be shown as a baboon. You can see the baboons as a representation of Thoth at the base of the obelisk of Ramses the great before the front pylon of Luxor  His wife is the Goddess of Truth & Justice, the Goddess Maat,  with whom he fathered Seshat, the goddess of knowledge, wisdom, writing, calculating, and sciences, who  is shown on the back on the seated staute of Ramses inside the first courtyard of Luxor Temple, where she dedicates the years that Ramses will rule.

Set the Murderer

 Set the Murderer

Set  was the son of Nut the Goddess of the sky and Geb the God of the earth, he was the brother of Osiris, whom he murdered out of jelousey. Osiris was the Ancient Egyptian god of the dead, and the god of the resurrection into eternal life; ruler, protector, and judge of the deceased.  

 According to one myth Set lived in the Great Bear, a constellation in the northern sky – an area which symbolized darkness and death. He was a storm god associated with strange and frightening events such as eclipses, thunderstorms, and earthquakes

Seth was a powerful and often frightening deity, however he was also a patron god of the pharaohs, particularly Ramses the Great. He protected the dead on the way to the Afterlife.

Even as an infant Set was dangerous and unpredictable. According to the pyramid texts he ripped himself violently from his mother’s womb instead of being born normally like his siblings.

In this unusual image  from the tomb KV14, Set stands firmly on top of a lion with two faces who both wear the crown of the south, it symbolizes the reconciliation of the two opposing forces it represents ‘he of the two faces’ who has the heads of Horus and Set. it is from the 9th Division of the Book of gates, on the left is a hawk-headed lion, on the right from the hind of a lion emerges a human head. 

The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom. The soul is required to pass through a series of 'gates' each hour of the night. Each gate is associated with a different goddess, and requires that the deceased recognize the particular character of that deity. The text implies that some people will pass through unharmed, but that others will suffer torment in a lake of fire. It narrates the passage of a newly deceased soul into the next world, corresponding to the journey of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night. Set helps in the cavernous journey through the gates and hours of the night and he rescues Ra from the Apophis snake

Before the New Kingdom,  those who were found guilty in the Hall of Judgement were damned to suffer a continuous cycle of everlasting torment in the outer darkness  of an area in the deepest recesses of the underworld, a place of continuous punishment that was infested with demons who had risen from the ranks of the damned themselves, killing and torturing each other. They would rip the protective mummy wrappings off each other, screeching and tearing each others flesh, their skin no longer protected, it rotted  and decomposed  Their hearts were ripped out and the ba soul was lost, never knowing the way to fly back to its bodily home again. Thirst and hunger ravished them, but they are denied the gifts of wine or bread, as their funeral gifts never reach them.,  they would sneak past the four baboons that guarded the Lake of burning fire only to find the water was not cool for them,  refreshing their thirst as it would for a righteous man, for the damned it was a place of destruction where burning, bloody water and the horrendous stench of putrefying burnt flesh  rose from its cesspools, for they were the brothers of Set, the God who murdered his own brother Osiris, and disguised himself as a pig to blind Horus thus causing  the eclipses of the light and sun.

Set was jealous of his brother Osiris who had been made pharaoh of Egypt, Set felt that he should have been given this power, Closer to his home his unfaithful wife Nepthys tricked Osiris into having sex with her by disguising herself as her sister Isis, who was the wife of Osiris, the outcome was that Nepthys had a son Anubis who served as the god of mummification

Set was furious with his unfaithful wife but took his vengeance out on his brother Osiris whom he murdered and scattered all the parts of his body to the far corners of Egypt. The Goddess Isis was so destraught that for many years she searched Egypt to find the body parts of her husband Osiris and with her magic,  she was able to bring Osiris to life, but Ra said that Osiris could not live on the earth with the living so he made him the Judge of the Underworld, he became the God of Eternal life and judged the deceased to see if they had led a just life, and were worthy of an afterlife

Set the protector of Ra

Despite the fact that Set murdered his own brother Osiris, he was considered to be the defender of the sun god Ra, whose barque he protected on its journey through the underworld (or the night sky) and he fought and killed  the  demon snake known as Apophis who has has guzzled the water surrounding the barque of Ra, on the journey through the caverns of the under world the barque was becoming trapped in sandbanks, but they were not sandbanks, it was the obese fat crushing coils of this  gigantic snake Aphosi that would trap the barque, while its demon eyes  will hypnotize the crew, enabling the snake to swallow their heads engulfing them in everlasting darkness. On the holy barque of Ra panic and chaos ensues, help is desperately needed, the companions on the barque struggle to fight off this vile creature, that has swum in the waters of chaos for eternity, In the battle Heka (the God of Magic) stands on the prow of the boat his divine magic was given to the human race by Ra and with his magical incantations he will exorcise the snake, subduing it to his power.  Ra then calls for Set, the god of Darkness, war and Chaos to help them kill the snake whilst Heka has it in his spell, Set leaps to the prow of the boat with his spear launching it at this terrifying demon serpent, it rises above the boat emitting a screech as its poisonous fangs launch towards them, Seth leaps onto the serpent and thrusts his sword into the back of its head.  Screeching it crashes into the waters of chaos launching the boat into a tidal wave through the caverns. Set is washed across to the shore where he drags the serpent and hacks its goutiness body to pieces.  In contempt of Ra and the other companions he gloats that only he could save them from the threat of this Demon, Ra in his anger instructs Hu and Sia to guide the boat to safer waters, leaving the Set on the shore.

Senenmout and the courageous Hatshepsut

Senenmout, was not a noble, he came from a lower background, but he rose to become the man of the utmost importance during the reign of a very determined woman, a God's wife of Amun, who declared herself a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, Queen Hatshepsut Maatkare ‘Foremost of Noble Ladies, Truth is the Soul of Re'  who ruled as the fifth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Hatshepsut was the favorite daughter of Tuthmosis 1, but on the walls of her mortuary temple, which was Senenmouts greatest achievement,  Hatshepsut asserted her birth to be divine, as she declared herself to be the daughter of the God Amun who announces on the temple walls  'Fashion for me the body of my daughter and the body of her Ka, a great queen shall I make of her'

After Hatshepsut was crowned pharaoh, Senenmut was given more prestigious titles and became high steward of the king, he was the 'Steward of the God's Wife' , he held many titles including Overseer of the Gardens of Amun', 'Steward of Amun', 'Overseer of all Royal Works' and 'Tutor to the Royal Heiress Neferure', 'Steward of the King's Daughter' (Neferure) Amazingly, during the rule of Hatshepsut Senenmout earned almost one hundred titles, including 'Great Treasurer of the Queen' he was an architect, an astronomer, and a very important government official. Hatshepsut became a Gods Wife of Amun, she knew how to obtain power and a position of strength, as this meant that she was the mortal wife of the God Amun, which is more important than to be the wife of a king

This statue expresses the strength and devotion and all encompassing protection that Senenmout offers the only daughter of Hatshepsut, the Princess Neferure.

Senenmout designed Hatshepsuts Mortuary Temple at Dier El Bahari, it was known as the Splendour of Splendours. This most magnificent mortuary temple  celebrates Hatshepsuts life, accomplishments, and her reign, it is  a masterpiece of architecture, the temple is  on three tiers, it is truly amazing  and is driven into the rock face at Dier El Bahari, the cliff face encloses it and  rises sharply above it. This temple is the  masterpiece of Senenmouts career.

             

It has colonnaded terraces with a row of tall Osiris statues of Hatshepsut that dominate the second teir and look down across the west Bank with her holding the crook and flail, signs of kingship, she is the shepard of her people, and will rule with strength. Apart from declaring Hatshepsut to be of divine birth it also records the first ever expedition to the Land of Punt, known to us as Somalia, it is an exotic country on the Red Sea coast, where  trees animals and incense for the temples were given by the Queen of Punt to Hatshepsut. The terraces of her temple are connected by long ramps which were once surrounded by gardens with frankincense and myrrh trees brought from Punt.

Senenmout was an astronomer and he created the temple axis to aligned to the winter solstice sunrise, when the sunlight penetrates through to the rear wall of the chapel, before moving to the right to highlight one of the Osiris statues that stand on either side of the doorway to the second chamber. Nine months later, at the autumn equinox, the Beautiful Feast of Opet would mark the pharaonic birth. As for the alignment of the 1st of February, it would be a marker of the date on which Amun-Ra pronounced the oracle that enthroned Hatshepsut as a female pharaoh.

Senenmout also  created a very large Red barque chapel for Hatshepsut, the chapel housed the barque to carry the God Amun to festivals from his earthly home at Karnack Temple. One festival was known as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, and is  recorded on the wall of Hatshepsuts barque chapel, it shows Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis 111 escorting the barque of Amun across the river to make offerings in her mortuary temple that was in direct line with Karnack Temple.

Here was a queen who was obviously determined to transcend all the works of all previous kings and create the most beautiful and unusual gifts for Amun. I was not disappointed as I arrived at Hatshepsut’s creation the imposing barque chapel of Hatshepsut with its burning warm red bricks, in the open air museum inside the precints of Karnack Temple,  again Hatshepsut had deviated from the usual choice of Alabaster that previous kings had used for their barque chapels, it is believed that a sacred barque was used in a nightly journey of Amun Ra, traveling from the western horizon at sunset behind the earth to the eastern horizon where the sunrise would occur. as I looked at the chapel, it occurred  to me the symbolism of  why Hatshepsut had  possibly deviated from traditional materials and chosen  instead  to use this unusual red quartzite, it was simple,  a heart  of a man is a deep warm red, and it pumps the warm blood through the body and sustains the life, and this chapel was ‘The Heart of Amun.

Senenmut also supervised the quarrying, transport, and erection of twin obelisks, for Hatshepsut for  the Temple of Karnak,  the inscription written on the obelisk that stands inside Karnack Temple expresses hatshepsuts  devotion to Amon Ra: 'I have created this work with a heart full of love for Amon, Initiated into his secrets of origin, Instructed through his beneficial power, I have not forgotten what he has ordained, My Majesty recognizes his Divinity, I have acted on his orders, It is he who has guided me, I have never slept because I was pre-occupied with his temple, I have never turned away from what he has commanded, My heart moved intuitively with The Father, I have entered intimately into the plans of his heart, I have never turned my back on the Master of totality, But rather I have turned my face towards him. 

In Ancient Egypt an obelisk was known as a Tekenu, Hatshepsut wanted her creations to be superior to all other kings creations, so she created the tallest two obelisks in all Egypt, to rise in Karnack Temple.  The suns rays hit the pyramideon at the tip of the obelisk which is covered in electrum, a mixture of gold and silver,   and the power of the sun ignites the pyramiddion flashing down the sides of the obelisk, if two obelisks are stood together it would create a powerful force field at the entrance to a temple, this power offers regeneration, and the writing on the obelisk is regenerated and the words invoke the God Amun Ra and offer power to Hatshepsut 

Hatshepsut recognized that true power came from devotion to Amun Ra, she became a God's wife of amun, which meant that she was the mortal wife of the God Amun. Egyptian temples were symbolically created to portray Egypt itself.The temples were a symbolic impression of the universe,  a picture that has been created from stone to describe the first moment of creation, the pylons are the East and Western deserts, the gateway portals represent the path that the River Nile would flow though Egypt giving her life each and every day. Gradually the earth rises in the temple as you reach the mound of creation,  the Hypostyle halls that had huge columns portrayed as the lotus plants that came into being,  at dawn the lotus rises symbolically to worship the sun. At the going down of the sun each evening the Lotus plant submerges beneath the waters of the Nile. It encompasses all the forces of nature and lives in the four elements, its roots are bound to the earth, and its stem rises through water, it flourishes in the air and blooms in the sunlight.

Hatshepsuts Mortuary Temple was used during her lifetime and festivals were held here, In the Opet Festival recorded on the walls of the chapel, The God  Amun is carried by priests in his Barque, all the way down the avenue of sphinx that used to unite the two temples with his wife Mut and their son Khonsu to celebrate the Opet Festival at Luxor Temple which is an unusual temple as it wasnt a mortuary temple, or an earthly home of a God, it had been created  to celebrate the marriage of Amun and Mut, and to regenerate the kings power and Egypt just before the annual flood. 

The beautiful feast of the Valley was also recorded on Hatshepsuts barque chapel, it shows Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis 111 escorting the barque of Amun across the river to her mortuary temple that was in direct line with Karnack Temple.  Hatshepsut had been the royal wife to Tuthmosis 111 father and thereby was Tuthmosis  aunt and stepmother, after Hatshepsuts death he had all her cartouches  and her works vandalized, by doing this he was denying her an eternal life.

Theban Tomb 353 was the second tomb of Senenmut and is often known as the “secret tomb”. His gift for Astronomy is portrayed on the walls and ceilings.  The tomb consists of three chambers, the decorations in Chamber A consist of spells to help Senenmut’s spirit to pass successfully though the Underworld, and a number of depictions of Senenmut, his brother (Amenemhat), and his pharaoh, Hatshepsut. The ceiling is decorated with astronomical designs incorporating a calendar recording the lunar months, the constellations, and the planets. This tomb portrays the earliest known star map in Egypt.The astronomical ceiling  is divided into two sections, representing the northern and southern skies. Senenmouts tomb was vandalized during the reign of Thutmose III, possibly because he was  so well favoured by Hatshepsut. Tuthmosis 111 had Hatshepsuts gifts for the God Amun vandalized so as to eradicate her memory and deny her an afterlife, the ancient Egyptians believed if a persons name was spoken, it would offer them eternal life. Together Senenmout and His Pharaoh Hatshepsut created the most  amazing gifts for the God Amun.

The Pharaoh Tutankhamun's Personal Photographer: Harry Burton

In 1913 Theodore Davis expressed his opinion that  the "valley had been exhausted" (the Valley of the Kings) unfortunately  he was only two meters away from discovering the entrance to KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun

In 1914, Lord Carnarvon applied for, and received a license to dig in the Valley of the Kings. The search for the tomb of Tutankhamun was on,  unfortunately the first World War interrupted the search. Howard Carter spent the war years working for the British Government as a diplomatic courier and translator, until 1917 when  together with a large workforce they enthusiastically resumed their search for Tutankhamun's tomb.  The search had exhausted over 5 years of hard work with no promise of a discovery  of Tutankhamun’s elusive resting place. As hope faded after five years of futile work,  Lord Carnarvon decided he wasn't prepared to search any further when on 4 November 1922  the most amazing day in the history of archaeology occurred, the young water boy working for Howard Carter accidentally stumbled on a stone, he immediately ran to Howard Carter to tell him, and Howard immediately instructed the workers to dig this area, and to their jubilation they had discovered the first step that lead down into the tomb of Tutankhamun. Harry Burton photographed the young water boy wearing one of the pectorals of Tutankhamun, and this photograph discreetly reminds us that Tutankhamun was only a boy of nine when he became pharaoh.

 

Carter realized that "the first and pressing need was for photography, as he would not disturb the contents of the tomb until a complete photographic record was made. In 1914, Harry Burton was hired as a member of the Graphic Section, of the Metropolitan Museum,  initially he was to photograph tomb interiors and later to record the work of the Metropolitan Museum’s excavation team, he rapidly gained a reputation as the finest archaeological photographer of his time. 

Howard Carter approached the Metropolitan museum and asked if he could have the services of their photographer Harry Burton, and so began Burtons work for Howard Carter and the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, he  recorded over 1,400 images  his first photographs were taken on 27 November 1922,  his photographs captured Tutankhamun's tomb within the first few days of the discovery, and his iconic black and white images have electrified Egypt around the  world with the amazing discovery of the only intact tomb that has ever been found with all the goods necessary for the pharaohs afterlife

Burton spent nearly ten years photographing Tutankhamun's tomb and its artifacts', his photographs were atmospheric as well as plain scientific records, in this photograph you can almost feel yourself peering into the tomb with Howard Carter, when Lord Carnarvon asked him can you see anything? and Howard carter expressed yes,  wonderful things !

For lighting inside the tomb Burton used the ancient Egyptian light effect of sunlight reflected into the tomb by mirrors, sometimes over a distance of 100 feet, the light caught by reflectors that were kept constantly in motion to disperse the light evenly on the subject.

Burton learned to operate a motion picture camera, that was on loan from  Samuel Goldwyn Productions, with this camera he recorded the opening of Tutankhamun sarcophagus in February 1924, and to show objects as they were being removed from the tomb. On 29th October 1925

The artifact photographed by Harry Burton and recorded as 317 is a small gilded box which contained two of Tutankhamun and Anaksanamun's stillborn daughters,  the smaller child died around the 6th month of pregnancy while the larger child presumably died shortly after birth. 

Howard Carter wrote to the Metropolitan Museum to thank them for the services of Harry Burton, who had completed his work 'in a splendid and admirable manner, in fact I do not know how to praise his work sufficiently. He had a colossal task which he carried out to the end in the most efficient manner possible, and I should like to convey through you my most sincere gratitude to your trustees and Director his good aid'

From 1937 Burton's health began to decline. He died of diabetes in Egypt on 27 June 1940, aged 60. He was buried in the American cemetery in Asyut.

May your Spirit Live, may you spend millions of years, you who love Thebes - Howard Carter & the Curse of Tutankhamun

 

On a cold day in March 1939 a small congregation of nine people stood around a gravestone which had the following inscription: 'May your spirit live, may you spend millions of years, you who love Thebes, sitting with your face to the north wind, your eyes beholding happiness,'  the quote was written on the gravestone of Howard Carter, and is taken from the wishing cup of Tutankhamun, 

At the age of 17 Howard Carter travelled to Egypt as a young artist hired to sketch artifacts. He went on to become an important archaeologist, and the lead excavator of the tomb of King Tutankhamun

In 1903 Lord Carnarvon was involved in a serious car accident, and was advised to seek a warmer climate in the winter months so he spent the following winters in Egypt, where his fascination with the ancient Egyptian culture was born. H​e became an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist, and whilst in Luxor he  was introduced to Howard Carter, and  In 1907, Howard Carter  began work for Lord Carnarvon, who employed him to supervise the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahri, on the West Bank of Luxor.  Gaston Maspero, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, recommended Carter to Carnarvon as he knew he would apply modern archaeological methods and systems of recording. Carter soon developed a good working relationship with his patron, Lord Carnarvon

In 1914, Carnarvon applied and received a license to dig in the Valley of the Kings unfortunately the first World War interrupted their search. Carter spent the war years working for the British Government as a diplomatic courier and translator. until 1917 when  they enthusiastically resumed their search for Tutankhamun's tomb once more.  On 4 November 1922, their young water boy accidentally stumbled on a stone, he immediately ran to Howard Carter to tell him, and howard immediately instructed the workers to dig this area that turned out to be the top of a flight of steps cut into the bedrock. Carter had the steps partially dug out until the top of a mud-plastered doorway was found. The doorway was stamped with indistinct cartouches Carter ordered the staircase to be refilled, and sent a telegram to Carnarvon, who arrived from England a few weeks later accompanied by his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert

The subsequent clearing of the tomb and its contents took more than ten years including the artefacts’ conservation and transport to Cairo.

Curses :

On 19 March 1923, Lord Carnarvon suffered a severe mosquito bite which became infected by a razor cut, he died of blood poisoning on 5 April 1923 in the Continental-Savoy hotel in Cairo.

The death of Lord Carnarvon six weeks after the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb resulted in many curse stories in the press. Obviously this sort of report would sell many newspapers

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, suggested that Lord Carnarvon's death had been caused by 'elementals' created by Tutankhamun's priests to guard the royal tomb. Doyle was a great believer in spiritualism. According to the press of the time, the famous author blamed Carnarvon’s death on an 'evil elemental' that guarded the tomb and had avenged its profaners. 

Howard Carter was entirely skeptical of curses, dismissing them as 'tommy-rot' and commenting that 'the sentiment of the Egyptologist ... is not one of fear, but of respect and awe ... entirely opposed to foolish superstitions. 

On the day the tomb was discovered, a cobra broke into Carter’s house and killed his canary, leading people to believe that indeed the spirit of the dead had been violated. a Cobra was a  symbol of protection of the king, it guards the gates of the underworld, wards off the enemies of the royals and guides the deceased pharaohs on their journey through the underworld. 

Skeptics have pointed out that many others who visited the tomb or helped to discover it lived long and healthy lives. Of the  58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years 

Inside the tomb Magic bricks’  were inscribed with chapter 151 of the Book of the Dead and  placed  in niches within the tomb of Tutankhamun at the four cardinal points of the earth to form a defensive perimeter around Tutankhamun.

Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not scientific, phenomenon, These appear to be directed towards the ka priests to protect the tomb carefully and preserve its ritual purity rather than as a warning for potential robbers

A study of documents and scholarly sources led to conclude that it was unlikely that Carnarvon's death had anything to do with Tutankhamun's tomb, refuting another theory that exposure to toxic fungi (mycotoxins) had contributed to his demise. 

Margaret Benson a 19th Century Amateur Egyptologist & her Discoveries at the Temple of Mut

 At the age of twenty Margaret Benson was taken ill with scarlet fever, and by the time she was twenty-five she had developed the symptoms of rheumatism and the beginnings of arthritis, and so she began to spend winters in Egypt, On her return to Egypt in 1894 she stopped at Mena House hotel at Giza and for a short time at Helwan, south of Cairo, this area was known for its sulphur springs and from about 1880 it had become a popular health resort, particularly suited for the treatment of the sorts of maladies from which Margaret suffered. When Margaret arrived in Luxor again she was greeted by the locals as an old friend. Even today if you return to Luxor you will be greeted by many Egyptians who recognize you from earlier trips and want to welcome you back. People at every turn asked Margaret if she remembered them, and her donkey-boy almost wept to see her.

In January 1895, Margaret achieved the distinction of being the first woman to gain permission to conduct her own excavations in Egypt beginning at the Temple of Mut, The Egyptian authorities agreed to Margaret excavating there as it was felt that she wouldn't make any significant finds, but Margaret surprised them all. The Goddess  Mut's name means mother and she  was the consort of Amun, titled 'Lady of Heaven', and 'Mistress of all the Gods' who was  the mother of the God Khonsu,  and Wife of the major God Amun,  her temple is in the precincts of Amun's earthly home, Karnack Temple.

When Margaret was given permission to work on the Temple of Mut, it was considered to be unimportant, and a site that no one else wanted. On her first visit to Egypt, she had gone to see the temple of Mut because she had heard about the granite statues with cats' heads (the lion-headed images of Sekhmet). The donkey-boys knew how to find the temple but it was not considered a "usual excursion" and after her early visits to the site she said that "The temple itself was much destroyed, and the broken walls so far buried, that one could not trace the plan of more than the outer court and a few small chambers" Margaret had no particular training to qualify or prepare her for the job but what she lacked in experience she more than made up for with her "enthusiastic personality" 

From her letters of the time, it is clear that this was one of the most exciting moments of Margaret Benson's life because she was allowed to embark on what she considered a great adventure. "On January 1st, 1895, we began the excavation" -- with a crew composed of four men, sixteen boys (to carry away the earth), an overseer, a night guardian and a water carrier. A good part of Margaret's time was occupied with learning how to supervise the workmen and the basket boys. Since her spoken Arabic was almost nonexistent, she had to use a donkey-boy as a translator

At the first northern gate it was necessary for Margaret Benson to clear ten or twelve feet of earth to reach the paving stones at the bottom. In the process they found what were described as fallen roofing blocks, there was a lion-headed statue lying across and blocking the way, and also a small sandstone head of a hippopotamus The Lion headed statues were Sekhmet, who was the Egyptian goddess of war and destruction, she protected the Pharaoh in battle. Her husband, Ptah, whose temple is also found in the precincts of Karnack and her son, Nefertem were worshipped here in Karnack Temple. Sekhmet was known as 'the lady of life', and 'the lady of terror', she was the powerful mother goddess and defender of Egypt,  Margaret was thrilled at finding so many statues of the Lion headed Goddess. After working around the west half of the first court and disengaging eight Sekhmet statues in the process, they came on their first important find, near the west wall of the court they discovered a black statue of a man named Amenemhet, a royal scribe of the time of Amenhotep II. The statue is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but Margaret was given a cast of it to take home to England. 

Margaret wrote to her father :

'My Dearest Papa, We have had such a splendid find at the Temple of Mut that I must write to tell you about it. We were just going out there on Monday, when we met one of our boys who work there running to tell us that they had found a statue. When we got there they were washing it, and it proved to be a black granite figure about two feet high, knees up to its chin, hands crossed on them, one hand holding a lotus. '

The government had appointed an overseer who spent his time watching the excavation for just such finds. He reported it to a sub-inspector who immediately took the block statue away to a store house and locked it up. An appeal was made to Daressy who was kind enough to reverse the decision. He said it was hard that Margaret should not have 'la jouissance de la statue que vous avez trouve' ('the enjoyment of the statue you have found') and so Margaret  was allowed to take it to the hotel where she could enjoy it until the end of the season when it would become the property of the museum. 

As work was continued in the first court other broken statues of Sekhmet were found as well as two seated sandstone baboons of the time of Ramesses III. The baboon represents the ruling pharaoh, as well as knowledge and wisdom.  Baboons in ancient Egyptian literature represent, the knowledge that the ruler gave to his people. The God Thoth manifested as a baboon, and an Ibis bird, as a baboon he is is depicted as heavily maned seated animal, with paws resting on his knees with the lunar disc and crescent on his head, he is the  god of the moon, of learning, and of writing. he recorded all important facts for the King, and was also present in the hall of justice when a deceased person stood before the God Osiris to be judged, Thoth recorded the verdict. He taught the ancient Egyptians to write and he was the creator of languages, the scribe, interpreter, and adviser of the gods, and the representative of the sun god, Re.

The results of Margaret's first season would have been gratifying for any excavator. In a short five weeks the 'English Lady' had begun to clear the temple and to note the errors on the older plans available to her. For the second season in 1896 the work staff was a little larger, with eight to twelve men, twenty-four to thirty-six boys, a overseer, guardians and the necessary water carrier. 

In 1901, after her work at the Temple of Mut was over, she wrote to her mother: "Such a lot of times in my life I've been driven this way and that... things stopped just when I thought I was getting to them, or like Egyptology, opened just when I could do nothing else....". She chose to excavate because it seemed a project of interest to her at a time when her ever-active mind needed stimulation and her health made it necessary to be in the warm climate of Egypt.

Margaret  worked for three seasons at the Temple of Mut between 1895 and 1897, in this time she unearthed valuable evidence of the temple's history. Margaret's companion, Janet Gourlay,  who was also her assistant  in the excavations at the temple of Mut became co-author of the book , 'The Temple of Mut at Asher' published in  1899 . The book  reveals Margaret's devotion to her project and to the temple, her interest in Egyptology, and her keen intellect and wit. 

Theodore Davis Egyptologist & Emma Buttles Andrews mistress & Travelling Companion, who recorded all Davis' discoveries in her Diaries

After her husband was admitted to a mental hospital, and his subsequent death,  Emma Buttles Andrews became the mistress and travelling companion to the millionaire Lawyer and archaeologist Theodore M. Davis, Emma shared Davis' enthusiasm for Ancient Egypt, and together they made a total of 17 trips along the Nile River aboard his yacht the Bedawin, Emma sat in the blazing sun many times where she  created sketches and drawings of Davis' excavations, and wrote in her diaries the excitement they both shared on making a discovery. Unfortunately her diaries were not published

During the  period from 1902- 1913 about 30 tombs were discovered under Theodores sponsorship, the most well known was the discovery of the  tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu, the parents of Queen Tiye, principal wife of Amenhotep III, mother of Akhenaten, and grandmother of Tutankhamun. Despite robberies in antiquity, the undecorated tomb preserved a great deal of its original contents including chests, beds, chairs, a chariot, and numerous storage jars. Additionally, the riffled but undamaged mummies of Yuya and his wife Tjuyu were found within their disturbed coffin sets. Prior to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was considered to be one of the greatest discoveries in Egyptology. The tomb was excavated in February 1905

By 1913, Davis was convinced that either KV54, the Tutankhamun embalming cache, or KV57, Horemheb's tomb, were in fact the tomb of King Tutankhamun. In the 1912 site report, he stated, 'I fear the Valley of the Tombs is now exhausted.' How wrong he was,  as his concession then passed on to Lord Carnarvon who offered the British archaeologist Howard Carter his sponsorship. Theodore Davis had only been working two meters away from discovering the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb KV62. . In Emma's diaries from those trips researchers are offered rare glimpses into her work with Davis in Egypt. They left Egypt in 1913 to settle back in the United States. Davis died in 1915 and Andrews died in January 1922.

After World War I, in 1918 Carter began an intensive search for the tomb of Tutankhamun, and after six years of searching Lord Carnarvon had finally given up the search to find the tomb of Tutankhamun, and he told Carter he would not continue to finance the work. Carter pleaded with him to reconsider and so Carnarvon agreed to one last season. On Nov 4th 1922 Carters young water boy Hussein Rasoul, tripped over a stone and he told Carter who immediately  instructed the workmen to dig in this area, and to their ecstatic thrill they had discovered the first step to the tomb of Tutankhamun, looking at this young water boy, it reminds us that Tutankhamun was only 9 years old when he became king