And so the curse of the mummy begins! What is interesting about this report of a cursed mummy is the claim that it was sent to the United States on board of the Titanic. Is it true? Turns out is was just a myth. There was no log of a mummy on board the Titanic.
Malignant Mummy Banished By British After Spreading Death And Injury
By Mary Boyle O’Reilly
London, England. May 11. — The “Malignant Mummy” of the British Museum has finally met her fate. Edgar Davies, photographer at the immense treasure house, told me how and why.
“Do I seem a sensible man?” demanded Mr. Davies. “Then believe me or no. But do not scoff. I am still afraid of the mummies priestess of the sun. Listen. Ten years ago a great English landowner brought the mummy from Egypt to adorn his hall. Report declared that of the mummy’s five discoverers two had almost immediately lost their fortunes, one had suffered amputation of an arm, one had been blinded by an explosion and one met a mysterious death.
“Within six months the Englishman’s fortune was lost on the stock exchange. Worried by misfortune, he grew nervous about the mummy and presented it to the British Museum. That week his luck changed. He is again a rich man. Within a month, of the four porters who carried the mummy into the Egyptian room, two were dead and one had broken his arms. I knew the men and their stories, but i laughed at the legend.
“It became my business to photograph the Priestess of Aman-Ra. The camera discovered that the mummy case was inscribed with a hoary curse. More surprising still, a photograph of that bland wooden face developed as that of a fierce, malignant woman. I laughed while I took that picture. A few weeks later I was blind.
“A clergyman who came to comfort me told this story of the Egyptian princess. He had taken 20 children into the museum, advising them not to tarry in the Egyptian room. But one little girl saucily stuck out her tongue at the malign mummy. Next day the child was armless from a motor accident.
“I could tell you fifty similar stories. There was no hiding the horror of such happenings. Attendants in the Egyptian department petitioned the museum trustees. Two of their number had died mysterious since the arrival of the mummy. The rest lived in fear.
“To avert further catastrophes the Priestess of Aman Ra — Divine Wife of the Sun — was carried into the museum cellar. A harmless copy took her place. Misfortunes ceased. The sight of one of my eyes came back so that I can distinguish light from darkness, but I cannot see to read. After three years of peace an American Egyptologist, studying in the museum, discovered the “fraud” and traced the missing mummy to the underground store rooms.
“‘I guess that fine mummy is not a bit of good to you in your cellars. I want it for America. I will make a bid for it.’
“He was eager to buy, the trustees willing to sell. No packing was ever done more quickly. The mummy case had to be put on board ship secretly at night,for it looked like a casket.
“‘We are safe from her at last,’ said the master packer to me. We were, though the worst was yet to come. For next day the Priestess of Aman Ra left England on the steamship Titanic.”
Did the mummy’s diabolic power hurl the leviathan to its doom?
Source: The Day Book. Newspaper. May 11, 1914.
