October 10, 2025 • 43 mins
SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST
This week's rerun takes us to Egypt's Valley of the Kings in 1922, where years of painstaking excavation were about to yield one of archaeology's greatest discoveries. For centuries, the ancient burial grounds had surrendered their secrets reluctantly, but one tomb had remained hidden, lying in the darkness beneath the desert sands...
When that first crack of light pierced the burial chamber, it revealed wonders beyond imagination - golden treasures that had lain untouched for over three thousand years. But some believed that disturbing the eternal rest of the pharaohs came with a price, and that certain doors were never meant to be opened…
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, it's Richard MacLean Smith here with Unexplained on an
end of season break. We'll be dipping back into the
archive each week until season nine begins on Friday, October thirty. First.
This week's episode takes us to Egypt's Valley of the
Kings in nineteen twenty two, where years of painstaking excavation
were about to yield one of archaeology's most infamous discoveries.
(00:23):
For centuries, these ancient burial grounds had surrendered their secrets reluctantly,
and one tomb had remained stubbornly hidden, lying in the
darkness beneath the desert sands. When that first crack of
light pierced the burial chamber, it revealed wanders beyond imagination,
golden treasures that had lain untouched for over three thousand years.
(00:47):
But some believe that disturbing the eternal rest of a
pharaoh comes with a price, and that some doors are
never meant to be opened. This is Unexplained Season three
episode From Eternity to Here. It is the year ten.
(01:17):
Along the banks of the river are Sits, the majestic
city of warst the largest in all the land and
capital of the mighty Kingdom of Casset, the world leading
beacon of knowledge, industry, and culture. It is the year
ten because it is the tenth year of their king's reign.
(01:39):
It is also his last, for on the edge of
the city, inside a grand stone temple, their king, a
young man of nineteen, lies dead. With his death comes
great uncertainty for a nation only recently restored under the
watchful eye of the great God mun though none of
(02:00):
that matters for him now. It is not the end
by any stretch, as is well understood by all who
are gathered by his side. His death is but the
first step in the ultimate journey, a journey that, with
the correct preparations, will see his spirit in human form
carried to the other side and voyage into eternity to
(02:24):
walk forever among the gods in the golden fields of Aru.
It begins with the ex cerebration, the washing of the body,
followed by the puncturing of a hole through the back
of the nasal cavity, into which a seven inch tall
(02:48):
fashioned from the stem of palm leaf with a small
hook carved into the end is inserted. Since the brain
is thought to serve no function, the embalmer extracts what
they can, before pouring a solution into the cavity to
dissolve what is left. Next, the lungs, liver, stomach, and
(03:09):
intestines are removed through a small incision cut into the
left side of the torso, before being cleansed and packed
into natron salts alongside the body. Forty days later, as
the sweet smoke of incense fills the room, the desiccated
body is smothered in a pungent concoction of herbs, oil
(03:31):
and resin, before being carefully wrapped in linen, into which
a number of totems for the gods are inserted, all
the better to aid him in his journey. Priests solemnly
chance spells read from papyrus scrolls known today as the
Book of the Dead, urging Osiris, the great god of
(03:54):
the underworld, to take their king from this mortal realm
and lead him safely to paradise. As an exquisite mask
of solid gold inlaid with precious stones and glass, is
gently fitted onto his head, his lifeless body now seeming
almost alive, as two bright eyes of obsidian and quartz
(04:16):
stare back into the room. On the forehead stands the Euaeus,
a vigilant cobra rearing up to protect its master. Fifteen
days later, and this newly bedueled body is transferred to
a coffin of solid gold, encasing the king in the
(04:38):
flesh of the gods. This, in turn is placed in
two further coffins before being lowered into a vast stone sarcophagus,
all covered over in more spells for the dead. A
short time later, under the searing heat of the great
orb in the sky, the very eye of the great
(04:59):
god Moon Rah, the funerary procession makes its way across
the desert, the taut, sinuous bodies of the king's slaves
strained with the weight of the three ton sarcophagus as
it is dragged across the sand toward the Great and
Majestic Necropolis. Two vast giants rear into view mighty sandstone
(05:24):
statues of the King's grandfather, towering sixty feet high above
the procession, their eyes following the sarcophagus as it moves
across the dusty land, until finally stopping at the entrance
of a small tomb carved into the rock. Here, the
body of the king is delivered into the ground as
(05:45):
the final spells are encanted, and his body left for eternity,
the tomb blocked, sealed, and filled in with rubble to
prevent his body from being disturbed. For most, the onely
to paradise was a dangerous and terrifying ordeal, requiring the
completion of a treacherous gauntlet while being chased by grotesque entities.
(06:11):
For kings and queens, however, since they were considered virtual
deities themselves, success was all but guaranteed, provided, of course,
their bodies remained preserved and undisturbed for all eternity. And
so we must leave our young king in peace or
(06:32):
risk condemning his spirit to a lifetime of restlessness. After all,
we wouldn't want to come between a king and his paradise,
would we. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard MacLean Smith.
(06:56):
Having left our king, we returned to the surface to
find three thousand, two hundred years have passed and much
has changed. The Eye of Amunrah now seemingly closed forever,
known instead as merely the Sun. The once great city
of war Set transformed into al Uxur, also known as
(07:21):
luxor that Mighty River. Are more commonly referred to as
the knee Ill or River Nile, the ancient kingdom of
Carset and leading seat of civilization, known of course as
Misron or Egypt. Though much remains of the majestic necropolis
(07:46):
known today as the Valley of the Kings, the paean
to a once mighty civilisation is now little more than
a museum, reduced to rubble and dust, a valley of
lifeless things where once the effigies of Titans passed as
Shelley would have it compelled Ye mighty to look on
(08:07):
their works and despair. Now only their weathered and crumbling
statues remain a reminder of distant, unknowable and long forgotten people.
Even their language would have all but vanished were it
not for the discovery in seventeen ninety nine of a
large broken tablet etched all over in words and symbols.
(08:31):
The stone was dug up by French soldiers stationed at
the fort of kite Bay, near the city of Rashid,
also known as Rosetta, on Egypt's north coast. The writing
on the Rosetta stone, although little more than a mundane decree,
would ultimately turn out to be among the most important
(08:51):
discoveries in archaeology composed of three languages, Hieroglyphics, Ancient Greek,
and Demotic, a languish thought to have evolved from hieroglyphics.
The writing on the stone proved to be nothing less
than the key to unlocking the language of the ancient Egyptians.
(09:12):
Roughly twenty years after its discovery, French linguist Jean Francois
Champollion cracked the code, and with a very particular kind
of magic, an entire civilization had been resurrected, and with
it came a sudden resurgence of interest in this newly
decipherable culture. Champollion's discovery heralded the birth of modern Egyptology,
(09:39):
and goes some way to explaining why. In nineteen o seven,
on the outskirts of Luxor, we find an Englishman sweating
profusely in a three piece suit, next to his wife
in equally ill suiting clothing, her expensive jewelry glinting in
the sun as they watch workers in long white thobes
(09:59):
scrape and dig at the ground before them. The man
is George Edward Stanhope molneu Herbert, otherwise known as the
Fifth Earl of Carnarvon born in eighteen sixty six. At
the age of thirteen, George, like all Carnarvans before him,
(10:20):
was sent to Eton College, the nation's most exclusive independent
boarding school. Despite being an academic failure such as the
way of Things, he was nonetheless granted a place at
Cambridge University. In eighteen ninety after the death of his
father at the age of twenty four, George inherited his
(10:42):
title along with the number of properties, including the family's
stately home, High Claire Castle, a vast and sprawling seventeenth
century mansion and five thousand acre estate in the County
of Hampshire. High Claire Ishashaps, best known as the home
of the Crawley family from the wildly successful period drama
(11:06):
Downton Abbey. Within a matter of years, George, who has
a ponchant for automobiles and horse racing, has spent most
of his inheritance racking up vast gambling debts. In the process.
Spotting a fix, Lord Carnarvan proposes to Almina Wombwell, the
(11:27):
illegitimate daughter of the banker Alfred de Rothschild, and the
couple married soon after. In eighteen ninety five, the resultant
settlement provided by Rothschild will be enough to keep the
Rakish Canarvan from ever having to worry about anything as
tiresome as getting a job. A son, Harry and daughter
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Evelyn arrived soon after, in eighteen ninety eight and nineteen
oh one, respectively. Carnarvan's interest in Egypt had been slim
at best until he is advised by a doctor to
begin wintering in the newly fashionable location after suffering a
near fatal car crash in Germany. Bored and alienated from
(12:11):
his cars, he soon finds himself drawn to the intriguing
world of archaeology and the thought of finding treasure in
the desert, wondering if he too might not be able
to find some of his own. It was a decision
he would not live to regret. In the early nineteenth century,
(12:38):
there was one Egyptian treasure more sought after than any other.
What drew most archaeologists to the country at that time
was the valley situated northwest of Luxor, known as the
Valley of the Kings, the final resting place of over
sixty pharaohs, nobles and royalty, each buried with a mountain
(12:58):
of riches to take with them to the afterlife. By
nineteen oh seven, however, the valley had been almost completely plundered,
with many of the tombs having been robbed thousands of
years previously. Of all the pharaohs buried in the valley,
only two tombs were thought to remain undiscovered, that of Horemheb,
(13:23):
the last ruler of the eighteenth dynasty, and that of
a little known pharaoh, also of the eighteenth dynasty, a
mysterious boy king known as two tank Armoun. It is
this that has brought Lord Carnarvan to the edge of
the desert in his thick cotton suit, swatting flies as
(13:43):
he watches his workers scrape fruitlessly in the dirt. After
a few years of little success, it becomes clear to
the hopeless amateur that some expertise is needed, and on
the advice of an acquaintance, Carnarvan dec to pair up
with another Englishman named Howard Carter. Born in Kensington, London
(14:07):
in eighteen seventy four. Carter had first traveled to Egypt
at the age of seventeen, having fallen in love with
the idea of it as a boy. Working initially as
an artist, sketching ancient artifacts for archaeologists to study. Carter
had soon become somewhat of an expert on the subject himself,
(14:28):
and had, by the age of twenty five, risen to
the position of Inspector General of Monuments for Upper Egypt. However,
in nineteen oh five, Carter was forced to resign, having
taken the side of local sight guards, allowing them to
defend themselves against a group of drunk tourists Cutter drift.
(14:50):
Carter feared his days as an archaeologist were over when
Lord Carnarvan approached him in nineteen oh seven. Instantly taken
by the u s young archaeologist, perhaps recognizing something of
his roguish self, Carnarvan offered Carter the chance to work
for him. Any hope of finding a pharaoh's tomb, however,
(15:13):
was hampered by the fact that only one person was
permitted to dig in the Valley of the Kings. Like Carnarvan,
Theodore Davies had been lured to Egypt by the thrill
of the chase. The wealthy American lawyer had secured the
permit for the valley back in nineteen o two and
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had shown little sign of giving it up since convinced
that the undiscovered tombs of teutonk Armen and horum Hep
were lurking there. In nineteen oh eight, Carnarvon and Carter
perceived the devastating news that horum Heep's tomb has been discovered,
though little is lost when it is found to have
(15:55):
been plundered many years before. Worse is to follow, however,
with news of teutonk Aarmen's tomb being discovered a short
time later. Davies's team had been excavating a site near
the tomb of the nineteenth dynasty pharaoh SETI the First
when they came across it. After careful excavations, a dozen
(16:20):
sealed jars were discovered, containing, amongst other minor treasures, a
series of linen bandages bearing the name of toutonk Aarmen.
Everything else, according to Davies, had likely been stolen by
tomb robbers shortly after the king had first been laid
to rest. Davies promptly made an announcement to the press,
(16:43):
and in nineteen fourteen published a detailed account of his findings.
But something needles at Carter. Davies had undoubtedly found artifacts
related to toutonk armen, and though such objects were often
found near a tomb, they tended to be buried in
a separate room away from the main body. Believing he
(17:08):
had discovered everything of any significance in the valley, in
nineteen fourteen, a victorious but exhausted Davies relinquished his permit
and returned to his home in the United States. Perhaps
at this point Carter and Lord Carnarvan should have taken heat.
Although he may not have found Teuton Carman's body, those
(17:32):
rags of linen had been buried close to it since,
having come into contact with it during the burial process.
They were considered a part of it. To disturb them
was to disturb the body as a whole, and within
a year the man who found them would be dead.
(17:53):
Believing Davies to be mistaken about his find, Carter convinced
Canarvan to take on his per so they can look
for the tomb themselves. Within weeks of securing it, however,
dark clouds were gathering. Two gunshots on the streets of
Sarajevo start a diplomatic cascade that culminates in the outbreak
(18:17):
of war. The brutal and bloody lights of which the
world has never seen. Almost as if it were a warning,
Carter and Carnarvan are forced to put their efforts on hold.
Carnarvan returns home to manage his estate, though in truth
his wife Almina shoulders the brunt of it, helping to
(18:39):
transform High Claire Castle into a military hospital, working as
a nurse for the duration of the war. Carter is
also fortunate to escape the fighting, being employed as a
diplomatic courier and translator for the British government in Egypt.
In nineteen fifteen, Arta contacts the New York Metropolitan Museum's
(19:03):
director of Egyptology, Herbert Winlock, to discuss his theory about
Davies mistake. Winlock is convinced too it isn't the tomb
that he has discovered that is still out there. A
desperate Carter and Carnarvan can only sit back and wait
(19:23):
in frustration. Back at High Claire, Invigorated by his adventures abroad,
Lord Carnarvan is becoming increasingly fascinated with the occult. The
mythology of ancient Egypt had long held a fascination for
(19:45):
purveyors of esotericism, which was only intensified by the resurgent
interest in Egyptology. Many secret orders, most notably the Freemasons,
were influenced by the mysteries of the ancient Egyptians, incorporating
many of their spells and beliefs into their rights and symbolism.
(20:06):
It was the mythology of the great Egyptian gods of Osiris,
Isis and Horace that Aleister Crowley would draw on when
establishing his own esoteric order, having apparently communicated with an
ancient Egyptian entity in Cairo in nineteen o five, it
is unlikely that Lord Carnarvan, being a man of high society,
(20:28):
was unaware of such connections. For his part, Carnarvon, who
was thought to have been a member of the London
Spiritual Alliance, would regularly hold seances in his grand family home,
dedicating one room, the East Anglia Room, especially for the practice.
Carnarvan's son Henry, spoke of one story that occurred in
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the spring of nineteen nineteen, whilst he was home from
military duty in Mesopotamia. Having been invited to attend a
seance along with his sister Evelyn and Howard Carter, amongst others,
Henry had watched in astonishment as one of the guests
entered into a trance and began to speak a strange,
unrecognizable language. It wasn't strange to Carter, however, who slightly unnerved,
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recognized it as Coptic, the language of modern Egypt. Only
the woman speaking it had never before uttered a word
of it herself. Later, the group would witness a vase
of flowers levitating above the table, with a form of
(21:39):
peace being declared. In nineteen eighteen, Carnarvon and Carter reconvene
their work in the Valley of the Kings. Four years later,
having diligently and meticulously supervised the clearing of most of
the valley, Carter had found nothing, and Carnarvan's money was
beginning to run out by the end of an especially
(22:03):
barren season of excavations. Having long ago grown bored by
the laborious, mundane realities of his exotic hobby, Lord Carnarvan
summons Carter to a meeting at High Claire. On arrival,
Carnarvan informs the tired and broken Carter that he no
longer wishes to finance this fool's errand in desperation, Carter
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requests the lord's permission to dig for one final season,
with only a small section of the valley left to investigate,
offering to cover all costs himself. Stirred by his friend's
commitment and perhaps hearing the voice of his father, who
had never thought his son would amount to anything, Carnarvan
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changes his mind and agrees to one more year, and
so it is that Carter returns to Egypt in October
nineteen twenty two for one final push. In late October,
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with digging due to start again the following week, Carter
travels to Cairo to help an antique dealer friend inspect
a number of antiques that have recently come into his possession.
He has just arrived at the shop when his attention
is caught by the sweet, lilting sound of bird song.
(23:31):
Strangely uplifted and moved by the melody, Carter finds himself
stepping into the cafe next door to locate its source,
discovering it to be a bright yellow canary in an
ornate cage. Unable to forget the bird song that night,
he returns to the cafe the following morning, and, with
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the help of the antique dealer's assistant, convinces the proprietor
to sell him the melodious canary. Arriving back at his
home in Luxall, Carter is greeted by his house staff,
who declare the bird a welcome addition to the house
and a sure sign of good fortune. The next morning,
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Carter rode up to the Valley of Kings, its silent
majesty and hidden secrets, never failing to move him there.
Gazing out across the pale, low lying peaks before him,
he knew this was his last chance. After five years
of excavations, Carter and his team had only one small
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area left to investigate, a triangle of land to the
northeast corner of the tomb of Rameses, the Sixth, mostly
taken up by the ruins of some stone huts that
had housed the slaves who built Rameses's tomb. Work began
on November first, and by the third the last remnants
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of the huts had been removed, leaving only the three
feet of earth they were constructed on, and below that
the bedrock of the valley. At some point the following day,
having eventually cleared away the mounds of earth, one of
the workers noticed something strange about the ground. How oddly
(25:18):
flat it seemed compared to the surrounding bedrock. Scraping away
at the dirt and sand, he couldn't believe what he
was looking at. It wasn't just bedrock, it was carved stone.
As Carter rode up to the site that morning, he
sensed immediately that something was up. The bustle and clanking
(25:42):
of picks and spades was conspicuous by its absence, and
up ahead he saw his team excitedly huddled around a
small section of the dig. Carter dismounted and made his
way to where the men had gathered. The circle of
workmen opened up and they smiled at the Englishman as
(26:03):
he drew near. Removing his hat, he squatted to the
floor and ran his hand over the exposed stone, feeling
his way around the edges. It wasn't just carved stone,
it was a step. Further excavation soon after unveiled the
(26:23):
clear outline of a stairwell, and as the men labored
into the evening, one step after another was revealed, descending
further into the ground. As a bright full moon rose
into the sky, it was time to call it a night.
That evening, an elated Carter returned home to find his
(26:46):
canary strangely subdued. The bird had ceased its singing the
following day. Twelve steps down, a short passage is discovered
and an entrance way that has clearly been officially sealed off.
(27:09):
Carter stoops down into the chamber, and shining a torch
onto the plaster, finds the mark of the royal Necropolis
stamped into it the clear image of a Nubis, the
jackal god of the dead, with nine characters kneeling below,
their arms held back and bound by rope. Whatever this was,
(27:32):
at the very least it had been created by royal appointment.
That it was found hidden under the tomb of a
twentieth dynasty pharaoh would suggest it hadn't been seen for
at least three thousand years. Taking a small chisel and hammer,
Carter made a slight peephole through the plaster and peered
(27:55):
through it to the passageway beyond. Though full of rubble,
he could clearly see its stretching some way into the rock,
but that was as far as he could go. With
darkness approaching. Having made his most exciting discovery in over
twenty years of work, Carter ordered the stairwell to be
(28:15):
filled in once more and destructed his most trusted workmen
to guard their find. Unable to proceed any further without
Canarvan and the supervision of the egypt Antiquities Department, Carter
composes a telegram to his friend and benefactor the next day,
accompanied once again by the bright melodies of his pet Canary,
(28:39):
almost as if it had become reanimated. At the returning
of the earth to the excavated tomb back at High Claire,
Canarvan has just returned from walking his beloved dog, Susie,
when he is greeted by his butler carrying Carter's telegram.
At last have made wonderful discos goovery in the valley.
(29:01):
It reads, a magnificent tomb with seals intact. Congratulations. Carter
is forced to wait over two weeks before Carnarvon can
make it back to Luxell, arriving with his daughter Evelin
(29:21):
on November twenty third. Two days later, under the watchful
eye of Carnarvon and the Chief Inspector of Antiquities, Carter
breaks through the first entrance to expose the passageway beyond.
Over the next few days, the excavators work tirelessly to
clear out the tunnel, until finally, twenty five feet in
(29:45):
they hit another sealed entrance that also appears to be
intact and marked with the seal of Touton Carmen. Moments later, Carter, Carnarvan,
and his daughter Evelin stand on the precipice of quite
possibly one of the greatest rediscoveries in the history of
human kind. Barely able to keep his hands steady, a
(30:10):
trembling Carter positions his chisel to the upper left hand
corner and makes a tiny breech in the plaster. Holding
a candle up to the hole, he tests for any
toxic gases before widening it just enough so that he
might peer through it. Taking the candle, he extends his arm,
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pulls himself up to take a look, and gasps, well,
can you see anything, asks Canarvan. Yes, replies Carter, wonderful things.
It had taken a moment for his eyes to adjust
to the darkness, the candle flame almost going out as
(30:55):
a sudden rush of warm air escaped from the chamber.
Having adapted to the light, Carter had stood completely dumb
struck as there on the other side of the wall,
strange figures were beginning to emerge from the darkness, life
sized statues of men, bizarrely shaped animals, and everywhere the
(31:17):
unrelenting glint of gold. They had at last rediscovered the
untouched tomb of King Teuton Carmen. Moments later, a young
boy descends into the tunnel to deliver a message to
the archaeologist. Just as Carter had been making his hole
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in the wall, a cobra had made its way into
his house, up a table leg and into the cage
of his canary, killing it instantly and swallowing it whole.
The boy was terrified. It was a clear sign, he said,
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the cobra, representing royalty and protection as symbolized by the
Uaeus as worn on the crown of all pharaohs, had
killed the lucky bird. Though Carter will later write that
he and Canarvan choose this moment to halt the excavation
until an antiquity's official could be alerted, as was required
(32:21):
by Egyptian law at the time, in truth, they did
no such thing. Undeterred by the ominous omen, Carter proceeded
to make the hole wide enough for himself, Canarvan, and
Evelin to slip through it into the next chamber so
they could examine their find at closer quarters. Moving into
(32:44):
the sacred space, it was as if they had stepped
back three thousand years. A half filled bowl of mortar
had been left on the side, ancient fingerprints still marked
the walls, and all about was filled with hundreds of
extraordinary statues and other bedeeled and golden objects, but there
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was no sign of the king's body, meaning they had
only reached the ante chamber. Carter walked to the far
side of the room that was flanked by two life
sized statues, presumably of the king, made from ebony and gold,
effigies placed to guard the entranceway to his burial chamber.
(33:27):
Carter held up the candlelight to their faces, illuminating the
sacred cobras set into their crowns right under their gaze.
He made another small hole, just large enough to squeeze through,
and then Carter, Canarvan, and Eveland made their way into
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the next room, a cramped space taken up by what
seemed like a vast golden box. They had found it,
the king's final resting place, with the seal to its
entrance still intact. This now being highly illegal, The three
of them slipped back into the ante chamber and covered
(34:11):
up the whole. Returning to the surface, an exhilarated Carter
and Canarvan congratulated each other on their fiend, but found
themselves strangely subdued as they made their way to their
respective beds that night. With the moment they had craved
for so many years having finally arrived, it was as
(34:34):
if something of the wonder in the world had vanished forever.
Within days, news of the find had made its way
around the globe, and Carter and Lord Carnarvan became overnight celebrities,
(34:55):
their extraordinary rediscovery roundly heralded as one of the greatest
in history. As protocol dictated, it would be some months
before Carter was able to access the burial chamber, as
all objects in the first room needed to be removed
and documented first. Over the next few weeks, a number
(35:16):
of dignitaries would come from far and wide to view
the tomb for themselves. On December third, Lord Carnarvan returned
home to wait out the next phase, where he found
a bizarre message waiting for him. It had been sent
by the self styled Count Louis Lawarna Hammon, otherwise known
(35:39):
as world renowned fortune teller and self described clairvoyante. Keiro
the Apparent psychic, born William John Warner in Ireland in
eighteen sixty six, had made quite a name for himself,
having apparently successfully foretold a number of recent events, from
the signing of the Balfour Declaration to the failure of
(36:01):
Sir Ernest Shackleton's second expedition to the Antarctic. His message
to Carnarvan was a warning delivered to him he maintained
in the form of automatic writing from one of King
teutonk Armand's sisters. It was a plea that he not
remove anything from the King's tomb, or else he would
(36:23):
suffer an injury, a sickness from which he would never recover,
and that death would claim him in Egypt. Undoubtedly shaken
by the message, Canarvan none the less returned to Egypt
in January to witness the formal opening of the inner
burial chamber, which took place on February sixteenth. Soon after,
(36:47):
proceedings were halted again when Carter and Carnarvan had a
falling out over the management of the site. Since the
tomb's initial rediscovery the treasure within it had become the
subject of much diplomatic wrangling over who in fact owned it,
with it eventually being declared the property of the Egyptian state.
(37:09):
The pair were later reconciled after Carnarvan apologized to Carter.
One month later, Lord Carnarvan was bitten by a mosquito.
He had all but forgotten the bite until he cut
himself on it shortly after whilst shaving. Within days, the
cut became infected and he developed sepsis. Over the next
(37:34):
few weeks, his body struggled to fight the infection, and
by early April, the Lord was completely bedridden. At his
suite in the Savoy Hotel in Cairo. Shortly after midnight
on April fifth, a strong gust of wind swept through
the city of Cairo, rattling the shutters outside the lord's bedroom. Inside.
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A weary Canarvan watched with concern as the lights of
his suite flickered out, as did all the lights in
fact in the city, plunging it into total darkness. By
the time they had come back on barely minutes later,
Lord Carnarvan was dead. Electricians working the city's power terminal
(38:24):
the following day, will fail to find any obvious cause
for the blackout. On hearing of the death, Author Arthur
Conan Doyle is one of the first to suggest that
Carnarvan had been the victim of a curse, having broken
into the sanctity of a pharaoh's tomb. He will not
(38:47):
be the last, and nor would Lord Carnarvan be the
only apparent victim of such a curse. Over the next
few months, a number of people linked to the discovery
of the tomb died in strange or unexpected circumstances, such
as twenty three year old Prince Ali Camel Farmi Bay,
(39:10):
who was shot dead by his wife Marie Marguerite on
July tenth, shortly after he had visited the tomb. Aubrey
Herbert Carnarvon's half brother, had also visited the tomb, shortly
before a routine dental operation led to a fatal blood poisoning.
(39:30):
He also died that same year. In September. The following month,
Captain Richard Bethel Howard Carter's forty six year old secretary,
was found dead in bed of a suspected heart attack,
the cause of death ultimately being unconfirmed. Over the next
(39:51):
ten years, as many as eleven people would die apparent
victims of the curse. Howard Carter, who had no patience
for superstition, and while talk of ancient curses, would live
for another sixteen years before dying of Hodgkin's disease at
the age of sixty four. Those who knew about the
(40:19):
ominous warning sent to Lord Carnarvan by the psychic Key
Roe were left to wonder if there had been any
truth to his claim. Perhaps they had unsettled the pharaoh's
spirit after all by disturbing his grave, or perhaps by
taking something that wasn't theirs to take. Canarvan and Howard's
(40:42):
insistence that they didn't at any point steal anything from
inside the tomb seemed to negate the second point. At
least sixty five years after Carnarvan's death, High Claire Castle
became the property of the fifth Earl's grandson, Henry. It
having fallen to him to carry out an inventory of
(41:05):
the family estate. He called in his father's retired butler,
Robert Taylor, to help with the review. Having finally detailed
every last item in the house, Henry assumed that everything
had been accounted for well, that is everything, said Taylor,
(41:27):
except for the Egyptian stuff. I'm sure just what Taylor meant.
The former butler proceeded to lead Henry to a pair
of small, ornate doors that had long ago been blocked
off with furniture. After removing the tables and chairs, Taylor
opened the doors to reveal a long forgotten, dark and
(41:51):
dusty passageway. Henry followed Taylor inside, who stopped in front
of a set of panels in the wall, opening them
to reveal a secret storage space behind inside which were
stored a number of sealed tints. Henry would later open them,
(42:13):
discovering a collection of over three hundred ancient Egyptian artifacts,
a secret that Lord Carnarvan had taken to his grave.
Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy
(42:35):
Club production podcast created by Richard McLean Smith. All other
elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
by me Richard mclin Smith, Unexplained. The book and audiobook
is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
(42:57):
and rate the show wherever you get your podcast and
feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
you have an explanation or a story of your own
you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches online through X and
Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
(43:20):
Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast
Hello, it's Richard MacLean Smith here with Unexplained on an
end of season break. We'll be dipping back into the
archive each week until season nine begins on Friday, October thirty. First.
This week's episode takes us to Egypt's Valley of the
Kings in nineteen twenty two, where years of painstaking excavation
were about to yield one of archaeology's most infamous discoveries.
(00:23):
For centuries, these ancient burial grounds had surrendered their secrets reluctantly,
and one tomb had remained stubbornly hidden, lying in the
darkness beneath the desert sands. When that first crack of
light pierced the burial chamber, it revealed wanders beyond imagination,
golden treasures that had lain untouched for over three thousand years.
(00:47):
But some believe that disturbing the eternal rest of a
pharaoh comes with a price, and that some doors are
never meant to be opened. This is Unexplained Season three
episode From Eternity to Here. It is the year ten.
(01:17):
Along the banks of the river are Sits, the majestic
city of warst the largest in all the land and
capital of the mighty Kingdom of Casset, the world leading
beacon of knowledge, industry, and culture. It is the year
ten because it is the tenth year of their king's reign.
(01:39):
It is also his last, for on the edge of
the city, inside a grand stone temple, their king, a
young man of nineteen, lies dead. With his death comes
great uncertainty for a nation only recently restored under the
watchful eye of the great God mun though none of
(02:00):
that matters for him now. It is not the end
by any stretch, as is well understood by all who
are gathered by his side. His death is but the
first step in the ultimate journey, a journey that, with
the correct preparations, will see his spirit in human form
carried to the other side and voyage into eternity to
(02:24):
walk forever among the gods in the golden fields of Aru.
It begins with the ex cerebration, the washing of the body,
followed by the puncturing of a hole through the back
of the nasal cavity, into which a seven inch tall
(02:48):
fashioned from the stem of palm leaf with a small
hook carved into the end is inserted. Since the brain
is thought to serve no function, the embalmer extracts what
they can, before pouring a solution into the cavity to
dissolve what is left. Next, the lungs, liver, stomach, and
(03:09):
intestines are removed through a small incision cut into the
left side of the torso, before being cleansed and packed
into natron salts alongside the body. Forty days later, as
the sweet smoke of incense fills the room, the desiccated
body is smothered in a pungent concoction of herbs, oil
(03:31):
and resin, before being carefully wrapped in linen, into which
a number of totems for the gods are inserted, all
the better to aid him in his journey. Priests solemnly
chance spells read from papyrus scrolls known today as the
Book of the Dead, urging Osiris, the great god of
(03:54):
the underworld, to take their king from this mortal realm
and lead him safely to paradise. As an exquisite mask
of solid gold inlaid with precious stones and glass, is
gently fitted onto his head, his lifeless body now seeming
almost alive, as two bright eyes of obsidian and quartz
(04:16):
stare back into the room. On the forehead stands the Euaeus,
a vigilant cobra rearing up to protect its master. Fifteen
days later, and this newly bedueled body is transferred to
a coffin of solid gold, encasing the king in the
(04:38):
flesh of the gods. This, in turn is placed in
two further coffins before being lowered into a vast stone sarcophagus,
all covered over in more spells for the dead. A
short time later, under the searing heat of the great
orb in the sky, the very eye of the great
(04:59):
god Moon Rah, the funerary procession makes its way across
the desert, the taut, sinuous bodies of the king's slaves
strained with the weight of the three ton sarcophagus as
it is dragged across the sand toward the Great and
Majestic Necropolis. Two vast giants rear into view mighty sandstone
(05:24):
statues of the King's grandfather, towering sixty feet high above
the procession, their eyes following the sarcophagus as it moves
across the dusty land, until finally stopping at the entrance
of a small tomb carved into the rock. Here, the
body of the king is delivered into the ground as
(05:45):
the final spells are encanted, and his body left for eternity,
the tomb blocked, sealed, and filled in with rubble to
prevent his body from being disturbed. For most, the onely
to paradise was a dangerous and terrifying ordeal, requiring the
completion of a treacherous gauntlet while being chased by grotesque entities.
(06:11):
For kings and queens, however, since they were considered virtual
deities themselves, success was all but guaranteed, provided, of course,
their bodies remained preserved and undisturbed for all eternity. And
so we must leave our young king in peace or
(06:32):
risk condemning his spirit to a lifetime of restlessness. After all,
we wouldn't want to come between a king and his paradise,
would we. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard MacLean Smith.
(06:56):
Having left our king, we returned to the surface to
find three thousand, two hundred years have passed and much
has changed. The Eye of Amunrah now seemingly closed forever,
known instead as merely the Sun. The once great city
of war Set transformed into al Uxur, also known as
(07:21):
luxor that Mighty River. Are more commonly referred to as
the knee Ill or River Nile, the ancient kingdom of
Carset and leading seat of civilization, known of course as
Misron or Egypt. Though much remains of the majestic necropolis
(07:46):
known today as the Valley of the Kings, the paean
to a once mighty civilisation is now little more than
a museum, reduced to rubble and dust, a valley of
lifeless things where once the effigies of Titans passed as
Shelley would have it compelled Ye mighty to look on
(08:07):
their works and despair. Now only their weathered and crumbling
statues remain a reminder of distant, unknowable and long forgotten people.
Even their language would have all but vanished were it
not for the discovery in seventeen ninety nine of a
large broken tablet etched all over in words and symbols.
(08:31):
The stone was dug up by French soldiers stationed at
the fort of kite Bay, near the city of Rashid,
also known as Rosetta, on Egypt's north coast. The writing
on the Rosetta stone, although little more than a mundane decree,
would ultimately turn out to be among the most important
(08:51):
discoveries in archaeology composed of three languages, Hieroglyphics, Ancient Greek,
and Demotic, a languish thought to have evolved from hieroglyphics.
The writing on the stone proved to be nothing less
than the key to unlocking the language of the ancient Egyptians.
(09:12):
Roughly twenty years after its discovery, French linguist Jean Francois
Champollion cracked the code, and with a very particular kind
of magic, an entire civilization had been resurrected, and with
it came a sudden resurgence of interest in this newly
decipherable culture. Champollion's discovery heralded the birth of modern Egyptology,
(09:39):
and goes some way to explaining why. In nineteen o seven,
on the outskirts of Luxor, we find an Englishman sweating
profusely in a three piece suit, next to his wife
in equally ill suiting clothing, her expensive jewelry glinting in
the sun as they watch workers in long white thobes
(09:59):
scrape and dig at the ground before them. The man
is George Edward Stanhope molneu Herbert, otherwise known as the
Fifth Earl of Carnarvon born in eighteen sixty six. At
the age of thirteen, George, like all Carnarvans before him,
(10:20):
was sent to Eton College, the nation's most exclusive independent
boarding school. Despite being an academic failure such as the
way of Things, he was nonetheless granted a place at
Cambridge University. In eighteen ninety after the death of his
father at the age of twenty four, George inherited his
(10:42):
title along with the number of properties, including the family's
stately home, High Claire Castle, a vast and sprawling seventeenth
century mansion and five thousand acre estate in the County
of Hampshire. High Claire Ishashaps, best known as the home
of the Crawley family from the wildly successful period drama
(11:06):
Downton Abbey. Within a matter of years, George, who has
a ponchant for automobiles and horse racing, has spent most
of his inheritance racking up vast gambling debts. In the process.
Spotting a fix, Lord Carnarvan proposes to Almina Wombwell, the
(11:27):
illegitimate daughter of the banker Alfred de Rothschild, and the
couple married soon after. In eighteen ninety five, the resultant
settlement provided by Rothschild will be enough to keep the
Rakish Canarvan from ever having to worry about anything as
tiresome as getting a job. A son, Harry and daughter
(11:48):
Evelyn arrived soon after, in eighteen ninety eight and nineteen
oh one, respectively. Carnarvan's interest in Egypt had been slim
at best until he is advised by a doctor to
begin wintering in the newly fashionable location after suffering a
near fatal car crash in Germany. Bored and alienated from
(12:11):
his cars, he soon finds himself drawn to the intriguing
world of archaeology and the thought of finding treasure in
the desert, wondering if he too might not be able
to find some of his own. It was a decision
he would not live to regret. In the early nineteenth century,
(12:38):
there was one Egyptian treasure more sought after than any other.
What drew most archaeologists to the country at that time
was the valley situated northwest of Luxor, known as the
Valley of the Kings, the final resting place of over
sixty pharaohs, nobles and royalty, each buried with a mountain
(12:58):
of riches to take with them to the afterlife. By
nineteen oh seven, however, the valley had been almost completely plundered,
with many of the tombs having been robbed thousands of
years previously. Of all the pharaohs buried in the valley,
only two tombs were thought to remain undiscovered, that of Horemheb,
(13:23):
the last ruler of the eighteenth dynasty, and that of
a little known pharaoh, also of the eighteenth dynasty, a
mysterious boy king known as two tank Armoun. It is
this that has brought Lord Carnarvan to the edge of
the desert in his thick cotton suit, swatting flies as
(13:43):
he watches his workers scrape fruitlessly in the dirt. After
a few years of little success, it becomes clear to
the hopeless amateur that some expertise is needed, and on
the advice of an acquaintance, Carnarvan dec to pair up
with another Englishman named Howard Carter. Born in Kensington, London
(14:07):
in eighteen seventy four. Carter had first traveled to Egypt
at the age of seventeen, having fallen in love with
the idea of it as a boy. Working initially as
an artist, sketching ancient artifacts for archaeologists to study. Carter
had soon become somewhat of an expert on the subject himself,
(14:28):
and had, by the age of twenty five, risen to
the position of Inspector General of Monuments for Upper Egypt. However,
in nineteen oh five, Carter was forced to resign, having
taken the side of local sight guards, allowing them to
defend themselves against a group of drunk tourists Cutter drift.
(14:50):
Carter feared his days as an archaeologist were over when
Lord Carnarvan approached him in nineteen oh seven. Instantly taken
by the u s young archaeologist, perhaps recognizing something of
his roguish self, Carnarvan offered Carter the chance to work
for him. Any hope of finding a pharaoh's tomb, however,
(15:13):
was hampered by the fact that only one person was
permitted to dig in the Valley of the Kings. Like Carnarvan,
Theodore Davies had been lured to Egypt by the thrill
of the chase. The wealthy American lawyer had secured the
permit for the valley back in nineteen o two and
(15:33):
had shown little sign of giving it up since convinced
that the undiscovered tombs of teutonk Armen and horum Hep
were lurking there. In nineteen oh eight, Carnarvon and Carter
perceived the devastating news that horum Heep's tomb has been discovered,
though little is lost when it is found to have
(15:55):
been plundered many years before. Worse is to follow, however,
with news of teutonk Aarmen's tomb being discovered a short
time later. Davies's team had been excavating a site near
the tomb of the nineteenth dynasty pharaoh SETI the First
when they came across it. After careful excavations, a dozen
(16:20):
sealed jars were discovered, containing, amongst other minor treasures, a
series of linen bandages bearing the name of toutonk Aarmen.
Everything else, according to Davies, had likely been stolen by
tomb robbers shortly after the king had first been laid
to rest. Davies promptly made an announcement to the press,
(16:43):
and in nineteen fourteen published a detailed account of his findings.
But something needles at Carter. Davies had undoubtedly found artifacts
related to toutonk armen, and though such objects were often
found near a tomb, they tended to be buried in
a separate room away from the main body. Believing he
(17:08):
had discovered everything of any significance in the valley, in
nineteen fourteen, a victorious but exhausted Davies relinquished his permit
and returned to his home in the United States. Perhaps
at this point Carter and Lord Carnarvan should have taken heat.
Although he may not have found Teuton Carman's body, those
(17:32):
rags of linen had been buried close to it since,
having come into contact with it during the burial process.
They were considered a part of it. To disturb them
was to disturb the body as a whole, and within
a year the man who found them would be dead.
(17:53):
Believing Davies to be mistaken about his find, Carter convinced
Canarvan to take on his per so they can look
for the tomb themselves. Within weeks of securing it, however,
dark clouds were gathering. Two gunshots on the streets of
Sarajevo start a diplomatic cascade that culminates in the outbreak
(18:17):
of war. The brutal and bloody lights of which the
world has never seen. Almost as if it were a warning,
Carter and Carnarvan are forced to put their efforts on hold.
Carnarvan returns home to manage his estate, though in truth
his wife Almina shoulders the brunt of it, helping to
(18:39):
transform High Claire Castle into a military hospital, working as
a nurse for the duration of the war. Carter is
also fortunate to escape the fighting, being employed as a
diplomatic courier and translator for the British government in Egypt.
In nineteen fifteen, Arta contacts the New York Metropolitan Museum's
(19:03):
director of Egyptology, Herbert Winlock, to discuss his theory about
Davies mistake. Winlock is convinced too it isn't the tomb
that he has discovered that is still out there. A
desperate Carter and Carnarvan can only sit back and wait
(19:23):
in frustration. Back at High Claire, Invigorated by his adventures abroad,
Lord Carnarvan is becoming increasingly fascinated with the occult. The
mythology of ancient Egypt had long held a fascination for
(19:45):
purveyors of esotericism, which was only intensified by the resurgent
interest in Egyptology. Many secret orders, most notably the Freemasons,
were influenced by the mysteries of the ancient Egyptians, incorporating
many of their spells and beliefs into their rights and symbolism.
(20:06):
It was the mythology of the great Egyptian gods of Osiris,
Isis and Horace that Aleister Crowley would draw on when
establishing his own esoteric order, having apparently communicated with an
ancient Egyptian entity in Cairo in nineteen o five, it
is unlikely that Lord Carnarvan, being a man of high society,
(20:28):
was unaware of such connections. For his part, Carnarvon, who
was thought to have been a member of the London
Spiritual Alliance, would regularly hold seances in his grand family home,
dedicating one room, the East Anglia Room, especially for the practice.
Carnarvan's son Henry, spoke of one story that occurred in
(20:51):
the spring of nineteen nineteen, whilst he was home from
military duty in Mesopotamia. Having been invited to attend a
seance along with his sister Evelyn and Howard Carter, amongst others,
Henry had watched in astonishment as one of the guests
entered into a trance and began to speak a strange,
unrecognizable language. It wasn't strange to Carter, however, who slightly unnerved,
(21:18):
recognized it as Coptic, the language of modern Egypt. Only
the woman speaking it had never before uttered a word
of it herself. Later, the group would witness a vase
of flowers levitating above the table, with a form of
(21:39):
peace being declared. In nineteen eighteen, Carnarvon and Carter reconvene
their work in the Valley of the Kings. Four years later,
having diligently and meticulously supervised the clearing of most of
the valley, Carter had found nothing, and Carnarvan's money was
beginning to run out by the end of an especially
(22:03):
barren season of excavations. Having long ago grown bored by
the laborious, mundane realities of his exotic hobby, Lord Carnarvan
summons Carter to a meeting at High Claire. On arrival,
Carnarvan informs the tired and broken Carter that he no
longer wishes to finance this fool's errand in desperation, Carter
(22:29):
requests the lord's permission to dig for one final season,
with only a small section of the valley left to investigate,
offering to cover all costs himself. Stirred by his friend's
commitment and perhaps hearing the voice of his father, who
had never thought his son would amount to anything, Carnarvan
(22:50):
changes his mind and agrees to one more year, and
so it is that Carter returns to Egypt in October
nineteen twenty two for one final push. In late October,
(23:10):
with digging due to start again the following week, Carter
travels to Cairo to help an antique dealer friend inspect
a number of antiques that have recently come into his possession.
He has just arrived at the shop when his attention
is caught by the sweet, lilting sound of bird song.
(23:31):
Strangely uplifted and moved by the melody, Carter finds himself
stepping into the cafe next door to locate its source,
discovering it to be a bright yellow canary in an
ornate cage. Unable to forget the bird song that night,
he returns to the cafe the following morning, and, with
(23:52):
the help of the antique dealer's assistant, convinces the proprietor
to sell him the melodious canary. Arriving back at his
home in Luxall, Carter is greeted by his house staff,
who declare the bird a welcome addition to the house
and a sure sign of good fortune. The next morning,
(24:14):
Carter rode up to the Valley of Kings, its silent
majesty and hidden secrets, never failing to move him there.
Gazing out across the pale, low lying peaks before him,
he knew this was his last chance. After five years
of excavations, Carter and his team had only one small
(24:36):
area left to investigate, a triangle of land to the
northeast corner of the tomb of Rameses, the Sixth, mostly
taken up by the ruins of some stone huts that
had housed the slaves who built Rameses's tomb. Work began
on November first, and by the third the last remnants
(24:57):
of the huts had been removed, leaving only the three
feet of earth they were constructed on, and below that
the bedrock of the valley. At some point the following day,
having eventually cleared away the mounds of earth, one of
the workers noticed something strange about the ground. How oddly
(25:18):
flat it seemed compared to the surrounding bedrock. Scraping away
at the dirt and sand, he couldn't believe what he
was looking at. It wasn't just bedrock, it was carved stone.
As Carter rode up to the site that morning, he
sensed immediately that something was up. The bustle and clanking
(25:42):
of picks and spades was conspicuous by its absence, and
up ahead he saw his team excitedly huddled around a
small section of the dig. Carter dismounted and made his
way to where the men had gathered. The circle of
workmen opened up and they smiled at the Englishman as
(26:03):
he drew near. Removing his hat, he squatted to the
floor and ran his hand over the exposed stone, feeling
his way around the edges. It wasn't just carved stone,
it was a step. Further excavation soon after unveiled the
(26:23):
clear outline of a stairwell, and as the men labored
into the evening, one step after another was revealed, descending
further into the ground. As a bright full moon rose
into the sky, it was time to call it a night.
That evening, an elated Carter returned home to find his
(26:46):
canary strangely subdued. The bird had ceased its singing the
following day. Twelve steps down, a short passage is discovered
and an entrance way that has clearly been officially sealed off.
(27:09):
Carter stoops down into the chamber, and shining a torch
onto the plaster, finds the mark of the royal Necropolis
stamped into it the clear image of a Nubis, the
jackal god of the dead, with nine characters kneeling below,
their arms held back and bound by rope. Whatever this was,
(27:32):
at the very least it had been created by royal appointment.
That it was found hidden under the tomb of a
twentieth dynasty pharaoh would suggest it hadn't been seen for
at least three thousand years. Taking a small chisel and hammer,
Carter made a slight peephole through the plaster and peered
(27:55):
through it to the passageway beyond. Though full of rubble,
he could clearly see its stretching some way into the rock,
but that was as far as he could go. With
darkness approaching. Having made his most exciting discovery in over
twenty years of work, Carter ordered the stairwell to be
(28:15):
filled in once more and destructed his most trusted workmen
to guard their find. Unable to proceed any further without
Canarvan and the supervision of the egypt Antiquities Department, Carter
composes a telegram to his friend and benefactor the next day,
accompanied once again by the bright melodies of his pet Canary,
(28:39):
almost as if it had become reanimated. At the returning
of the earth to the excavated tomb back at High Claire,
Canarvan has just returned from walking his beloved dog, Susie,
when he is greeted by his butler carrying Carter's telegram.
At last have made wonderful discos goovery in the valley.
(29:01):
It reads, a magnificent tomb with seals intact. Congratulations. Carter
is forced to wait over two weeks before Carnarvon can
make it back to Luxell, arriving with his daughter Evelin
(29:21):
on November twenty third. Two days later, under the watchful
eye of Carnarvon and the Chief Inspector of Antiquities, Carter
breaks through the first entrance to expose the passageway beyond.
Over the next few days, the excavators work tirelessly to
clear out the tunnel, until finally, twenty five feet in
(29:45):
they hit another sealed entrance that also appears to be
intact and marked with the seal of Touton Carmen. Moments later, Carter, Carnarvan,
and his daughter Evelin stand on the precipice of quite
possibly one of the greatest rediscoveries in the history of
human kind. Barely able to keep his hands steady, a
(30:10):
trembling Carter positions his chisel to the upper left hand
corner and makes a tiny breech in the plaster. Holding
a candle up to the hole, he tests for any
toxic gases before widening it just enough so that he
might peer through it. Taking the candle, he extends his arm,
(30:32):
pulls himself up to take a look, and gasps, well,
can you see anything, asks Canarvan. Yes, replies Carter, wonderful things.
It had taken a moment for his eyes to adjust
to the darkness, the candle flame almost going out as
(30:55):
a sudden rush of warm air escaped from the chamber.
Having adapted to the light, Carter had stood completely dumb
struck as there on the other side of the wall,
strange figures were beginning to emerge from the darkness, life
sized statues of men, bizarrely shaped animals, and everywhere the
(31:17):
unrelenting glint of gold. They had at last rediscovered the
untouched tomb of King Teuton Carmen. Moments later, a young
boy descends into the tunnel to deliver a message to
the archaeologist. Just as Carter had been making his hole
(31:37):
in the wall, a cobra had made its way into
his house, up a table leg and into the cage
of his canary, killing it instantly and swallowing it whole.
The boy was terrified. It was a clear sign, he said,
(31:59):
the cobra, representing royalty and protection as symbolized by the
Uaeus as worn on the crown of all pharaohs, had
killed the lucky bird. Though Carter will later write that
he and Canarvan choose this moment to halt the excavation
until an antiquity's official could be alerted, as was required
(32:21):
by Egyptian law at the time, in truth, they did
no such thing. Undeterred by the ominous omen, Carter proceeded
to make the hole wide enough for himself, Canarvan, and
Evelin to slip through it into the next chamber so
they could examine their find at closer quarters. Moving into
(32:44):
the sacred space, it was as if they had stepped
back three thousand years. A half filled bowl of mortar
had been left on the side, ancient fingerprints still marked
the walls, and all about was filled with hundreds of
extraordinary statues and other bedeeled and golden objects, but there
(33:06):
was no sign of the king's body, meaning they had
only reached the ante chamber. Carter walked to the far
side of the room that was flanked by two life
sized statues, presumably of the king, made from ebony and gold,
effigies placed to guard the entranceway to his burial chamber.
(33:27):
Carter held up the candlelight to their faces, illuminating the
sacred cobras set into their crowns right under their gaze.
He made another small hole, just large enough to squeeze through,
and then Carter, Canarvan, and Eveland made their way into
(33:48):
the next room, a cramped space taken up by what
seemed like a vast golden box. They had found it,
the king's final resting place, with the seal to its
entrance still intact. This now being highly illegal, The three
of them slipped back into the ante chamber and covered
(34:11):
up the whole. Returning to the surface, an exhilarated Carter
and Canarvan congratulated each other on their fiend, but found
themselves strangely subdued as they made their way to their
respective beds that night. With the moment they had craved
for so many years having finally arrived, it was as
(34:34):
if something of the wonder in the world had vanished forever.
Within days, news of the find had made its way
around the globe, and Carter and Lord Carnarvan became overnight celebrities,
(34:55):
their extraordinary rediscovery roundly heralded as one of the greatest
in history. As protocol dictated, it would be some months
before Carter was able to access the burial chamber, as
all objects in the first room needed to be removed
and documented first. Over the next few weeks, a number
(35:16):
of dignitaries would come from far and wide to view
the tomb for themselves. On December third, Lord Carnarvan returned
home to wait out the next phase, where he found
a bizarre message waiting for him. It had been sent
by the self styled Count Louis Lawarna Hammon, otherwise known
(35:39):
as world renowned fortune teller and self described clairvoyante. Keiro
the Apparent psychic, born William John Warner in Ireland in
eighteen sixty six, had made quite a name for himself,
having apparently successfully foretold a number of recent events, from
the signing of the Balfour Declaration to the failure of
(36:01):
Sir Ernest Shackleton's second expedition to the Antarctic. His message
to Carnarvan was a warning delivered to him he maintained
in the form of automatic writing from one of King
teutonk Armand's sisters. It was a plea that he not
remove anything from the King's tomb, or else he would
(36:23):
suffer an injury, a sickness from which he would never recover,
and that death would claim him in Egypt. Undoubtedly shaken
by the message, Canarvan none the less returned to Egypt
in January to witness the formal opening of the inner
burial chamber, which took place on February sixteenth. Soon after,
(36:47):
proceedings were halted again when Carter and Carnarvan had a
falling out over the management of the site. Since the
tomb's initial rediscovery the treasure within it had become the
subject of much diplomatic wrangling over who in fact owned it,
with it eventually being declared the property of the Egyptian state.
(37:09):
The pair were later reconciled after Carnarvan apologized to Carter.
One month later, Lord Carnarvan was bitten by a mosquito.
He had all but forgotten the bite until he cut
himself on it shortly after whilst shaving. Within days, the
cut became infected and he developed sepsis. Over the next
(37:34):
few weeks, his body struggled to fight the infection, and
by early April, the Lord was completely bedridden. At his
suite in the Savoy Hotel in Cairo. Shortly after midnight
on April fifth, a strong gust of wind swept through
the city of Cairo, rattling the shutters outside the lord's bedroom. Inside.
(38:00):
A weary Canarvan watched with concern as the lights of
his suite flickered out, as did all the lights in
fact in the city, plunging it into total darkness. By
the time they had come back on barely minutes later,
Lord Carnarvan was dead. Electricians working the city's power terminal
(38:24):
the following day, will fail to find any obvious cause
for the blackout. On hearing of the death, Author Arthur
Conan Doyle is one of the first to suggest that
Carnarvan had been the victim of a curse, having broken
into the sanctity of a pharaoh's tomb. He will not
(38:47):
be the last, and nor would Lord Carnarvan be the
only apparent victim of such a curse. Over the next
few months, a number of people linked to the discovery
of the tomb died in strange or unexpected circumstances, such
as twenty three year old Prince Ali Camel Farmi Bay,
(39:10):
who was shot dead by his wife Marie Marguerite on
July tenth, shortly after he had visited the tomb. Aubrey
Herbert Carnarvon's half brother, had also visited the tomb, shortly
before a routine dental operation led to a fatal blood poisoning.
(39:30):
He also died that same year. In September. The following month,
Captain Richard Bethel Howard Carter's forty six year old secretary,
was found dead in bed of a suspected heart attack,
the cause of death ultimately being unconfirmed. Over the next
(39:51):
ten years, as many as eleven people would die apparent
victims of the curse. Howard Carter, who had no patience
for superstition, and while talk of ancient curses, would live
for another sixteen years before dying of Hodgkin's disease at
the age of sixty four. Those who knew about the
(40:19):
ominous warning sent to Lord Carnarvan by the psychic Key
Roe were left to wonder if there had been any
truth to his claim. Perhaps they had unsettled the pharaoh's
spirit after all by disturbing his grave, or perhaps by
taking something that wasn't theirs to take. Canarvan and Howard's
(40:42):
insistence that they didn't at any point steal anything from
inside the tomb seemed to negate the second point. At
least sixty five years after Carnarvan's death, High Claire Castle
became the property of the fifth Earl's grandson, Henry. It
having fallen to him to carry out an inventory of
(41:05):
the family estate. He called in his father's retired butler,
Robert Taylor, to help with the review. Having finally detailed
every last item in the house, Henry assumed that everything
had been accounted for well, that is everything, said Taylor,
(41:27):
except for the Egyptian stuff. I'm sure just what Taylor meant.
The former butler proceeded to lead Henry to a pair
of small, ornate doors that had long ago been blocked
off with furniture. After removing the tables and chairs, Taylor
opened the doors to reveal a long forgotten, dark and
(41:51):
dusty passageway. Henry followed Taylor inside, who stopped in front
of a set of panels in the wall, opening them
to reveal a secret storage space behind inside which were
stored a number of sealed tints. Henry would later open them,
(42:13):
discovering a collection of over three hundred ancient Egyptian artifacts,
a secret that Lord Carnarvan had taken to his grave.
Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy
(42:35):
Club production podcast created by Richard McLean Smith. All other
elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
by me Richard mclin Smith, Unexplained. The book and audiobook
is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
(42:57):
and rate the show wherever you get your podcast and
feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
you have an explanation or a story of your own
you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches online through X and
Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
(43:20):
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