00:01.80 kinkella Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 128 I am your host Dr Andrew Kinkella and tonight on a very special episode of the pseudo archeology podcast the curse of king. Taught. Okay, so we're doing the curse of king tut tonight. Ah well I'm here to tell you that I said this was a very special edition of the pseudo archeology podcast and by very special edition I mean. Lame oh yeah, not good like poor and why would I at the very beginning of this podcast ruin myself. Break every rule of good storytelling and tell you that this story is going to suck. It's because my friends I have tried I have tried with this story I have told it I've told it in different ways with my students over the years right every time I teach egypt egyptology we gotta do the curse you know and when we get there I always have a little bit of a side to myself and I'm like here we go. 01:26.45 kinkella I've tried to focus on different aspects of it I've tried to edit it down take out certain parts. Add other certain parts try and give it some sort of mojo right? some sort of Gen Aqua but there is no genna say qua here my friends the mojo. Has left the building because this story is not satisfying I'm just I'm just warning you right? You got to be prepared I know that you have many podcasts that you may listen to at this time and I am just telling you. That your choice ah is bold right? right at this right at this juncture right here now when I tell this story to my students even sometimes I'll tell them this you know hey you guys this isn't the greatest story and they'll always be like ah come on can kill a man. You could do it. You're just thinking low on yourself. And about halfway through I can tell the students they're like um, he was right this this story sucks. So I will I will try again right? tonight. But. 02:41.54 kinkella I think it's just smartest if we just embrace failure. Okay, that's what we're going to do here today on the sueudor archeology podcast you and I we're just going to give a big warm hug to failure. We are leaning into failure to the failure of this story. To add anything to your lives. Yeah, you feel that that warm embrace me too me too. So before we go down the well of the curse. Of King Tot we want to know a little bit about tut himself right? What are we? What we talking about? Well we what do we? where does this come from. So I think everyone knows King Tut but just in case, this is King Toot and Kaun he ruled during the eighteenth Dynasty of the new kingdom at around oh 141300 Bc and in that range of things I always forget maybe it's twelve fifty but it's it's in that in thatinity over. Over 1000 years bc so we're talking over three thousand years ago right and he yeah was ah he died at an early age right? He died when he was 18 and he's always sort of a sickly person I believe he rose to power when he was 9. 04:10.67 kinkella Give or take and so you know a nine year old. What are they going to do. He was really controlled by the generals and other government officials kind of behind him. He really was a puppet and just sort of a figurehead. Um as the son of aka notten if you guys know that story at all. Right? He's really used to bring egypt back to the good old days because akhenateton was really edgy in terms of his new belief system and changing Egypt king tu his his son is sort of there as as a useful idiot right? to ah, bring egypt back to. 04:49.17 kinkella The way it was before so always being sickly. You know how did king tut die um, nobody is a hundred percent sure he's just got so many things wrong with him he had malaria we believe he was in some sort of chariot accident or something like that that finally kind of compounded all these illnesses and. Did a man but then he's buried in all his feronic regalia and forgotten by time until this guy Howard Carter comes around in the early twentieth century now to me it feels like Howard. Carter is kind of a prickly dude. We all know these guys you know they're just they're really into what they do. They're really intelligent I mean he knows archeology right? but interpersonally not the guy you're happy to see at parties right? that guy. Kind of ah a work in progress. We all have that friend you know and he's he's that guy um, burning a lot of bridges right? So finally in in the in the 19 neteen teens he gets this idea that he wants to look for this pharaoh toot and Kaun he feels like there's one last tomb that hasn't been found and nobody believes him everyone thinks he's full of it. They're like Howard come on like the the value of the kings. It's all done. Okay there's nothing else there. 06:19.24 kinkella They thought that for years at this point and Howard's like no no I think there's one more I think there's king tooten kaun I I don't think he's been found and there was this other tomb that they thought might have been King Tuts right and it was looted and everything like all the other tombs looted but he's like no I think there's this one more so he gets. This guy Lord carnarvin who's Mr. Money bags right? He gets lord carnarvin to fund an excavation in the valley of the king's looking for this lost pharaoh king tooten kamun lord carnarvan is he's kind of a a. british rich british playboy character if you've seen the show Downton Abbey that house that's Lord Carnnavin's real house. That's the carn Navin estate isn't that crazy right? So this guy Lord carnarvin though he was always sickly. Um, he was in a really bad car accident. When he was younger and he was just always in frail crappy health one of the reasons Lord Car Navin came to Egypt was for the better weather and funnily enough. You see these funny connections between Lord Carnnarvin and King Tut just in terms of their bits and bobs of their life. There's an. Excellent book you guys that I highly recommend called lord and pharaoh by Brian Fagan I use this in my egyptology class and it takes this dual approach where it tells the story of King tut. 07:46.32 kinkella And the story of Lord Carnarrn and you kind of intersperse chapter by chapter. It's like King Tuck gets the odd chapters Lord carnarvin gets the even chapters and they kind of tell the story they kind of fagin kind of builds the story that way right? This kind of give and take really great. One of my favorite just history books in general Lord and pharaoh I'll I'll put a link to it. In the description I i. Highly recommend anyway, this guy Lord carnarvin decides to give Howard money to do this look for this last tomb and so over five years in the late teens and into the early twenty s. 5 excavation seasons right? They find nothing nothing and nothing Howard Carter grids out the entire valley of the kings and they look grid by grid finding nothing square by square finding nothing and then it gets to the point where at the final season. Lord Kernarvin's going to pull money. He's like look Howard. It's been great, but enough's enough man we just we not find. It's not here and Howard's like give me three more weeks right so Lord Kernaman actually leaves Egypt and of course in the last couple weeks in the final square. Welcome to archeology my friends. It's always like this he finds he uncovers a stairway leading down so he immediately telegrams lord Carnarvin he's like hey found stairway leading down lord car narvin of course telegrams back and he's like wait for me. 09:17.52 kinkella Wait right? So Howard Carter has to like look like nothing's going on for like three weeks because Lord Carnervin can't just jump on a plane from London right? he has to get on a boat on another boat. Go to Egypt down to Cairo right? It's takes weeks of travel. So. Waits three weeks Howard Carter is sitting on the biggest archeological find ever has to play it off like snow big deal and of course he still has his detractors. Yeah Howard you're not finding anything. He's like yeah guess not but k arvin comes back and then together. They go down the stairway they they pull out a bunch of boulders them and their workmen of course pull out a bunch of these boulders they are in this passageway and they come to. They come to? basically um, they the a doorway right? Basically the entrances tomb where they're going to break in and they um they ah. 10:11.12 kinkella Break a little piece open right? They and open a little piece Howard Carter puts a candle through the opening and into what's beyond and Lord carnarvin says Howard what do you see. And Howard Carter says wonderful things because his single candle light is glinting off the gold of the tomb of tootank kamun. 10:47.54 kinkella Man That's a good story. So let's ah when we come back. Let's ruin it by talking about the curse of King tut.