We all know that Egypt is one of the most amazing civilizations in the world,
but sometimes archeologists uncover things there that leave them
terrified. From jars full of human organs, to cursed mummy tombs,
today we’re going to break down the top 10 creepy discoveries in Egypt that scare archeologists!
USHABTI
In some ancient Egyptian tombs, explorers have found strange figurines called Ushabti.
These disturbing figures were made from wood or clay, and were supposed to come to life whenever
the person they were buried with entered the afterlife. The Ushabti were meant to be servants,
and were tasked with taking care of the deceased person for eternity.
In order to make sure the Ushabti did what they were supposed to,
spells from the Book of the Dead were carved into them. One Ushabti was inscribed with the message:
“If there is any work to be done in the Divine Hereafter,
or if there is an obstacle there, you say as a man in his duty, ‘Look, I am here!”
These terrifying dolls are like something out of a horror movie,
and they even scared the archeologists who first discovered them.
KV5 TOMB
Speaking of tombs, archaeologists recently found the largest and scariest yet. The KV5 tomb in the
Valley of the Kings is a massive underground structure that holds at least 121 rooms and
corridors. It was first discovered in 1995, and we still don’t know just how big it actually is.
Giant underground cemeteries have to be one of the scariest places you could possibly go.
And what makes this one even more panic-inducing is the fact that we have know idea how many dead
bodies are hidden within the walls. Some experts believe that there may be over 150
individual rooms inside the tomb, and probably hundreds of undiscovered mummies.
ANIMAL MUMMIES
We all know that the Egyptians mummified their corpses in order to preserve the bodies,
but you probably didn’t know that they practiced the same ritual on their
animals. Archaeologists were horrified when they found mummified cats,
baboons, birds, and more inside tombs. They even found mummified cuts of meat
that were left for the deceased person to eat when they entered the afterlife.
The practice of mummifying animals became so popular that Egyptian priests started raising
and slaughtering them specifically to be buried with a dead person.
According to some experts, you could go to a market and find animals embalmed and
ready to be put in the ground. Talk about a creepy shopping experience!
MUMMY CURSES
When King Tut’s tomb was first discovered, many people thought it was cursed.
Rumors said that anyone who touched the king’s tomb would suffer terribly and die.
And one of the leaders of the expedition to find the tomb did die from blood poisoning
just a couple of months after it was unearthed. However, his death was only
a coincidence because everyone else involved in the excavation lived long lives after the fact.
But this doesn’t mean that ancient Egyptian curses didn’t exist. Archaeologists have found several
tombs with curses carved into the walls. One even tells people “not to take even a pebble from
within.” These warnings were likely used to keep grave robbers away. The Egyptians believed that
if their body was disturbed after they died that it could affect their time in the afterlife. The
scariest curse they’ve found so far was written inside the tomb of a man named Ankhmahor. He
threatened to doom anyone who disturbed his tomb to be haunted by spirits for the rest of their
lives. But luckily the archaeologists who found his mummy haven’t reported seeing any ghosts.
CROCODILE TEMPLES
The Egyptians built temples to honor their many animal-related gods. And the animals that the
gods represented were often kept inside the temples and taken care of by priests.
This might sound like a fun job if you got to work at one of the cat-god temples, but when
explorers discovered ancient temples dedicated to the crocodile god Sabek, they were terrified.
Sabek was a river god who had a crocodile’s head on top of the body of a man.
And inside his temples, priests were forced to take care of dozens of man-eating reptiles.
An ancient Greek historian even stated that the crocodiles would
be dressed in jewelry and treated like kings. If that’s not creepy enough,
the priests also had to mummify any crocodile that died inside the temple. Out of all the
animals that the Egyptians worshipped, the crocodile is easily the scariest one of all.
HUMAN SACRIFICES
Getting to be a pharaoh’s personal servant was a pretty great gig in ancient Egypt. You didn’t
have to break your back doing manual labor, you got to sleep in the palace, and you never had to
pay for meals. But if the pharaoh you served died, you were in for a terrifying surprise.
In the period between 3500 and 2900 BCE, Egyptian rulers were buried with their servants. This means
that if you worked for a leader when they died, it was an automatic death sentence for you.
Archaeologists were horrified when they discovered that one Egyptian
king was buried with three hundred of his servants. Talk about having a dangerous job.
PROFESSIONAL MOURNERS
Imagine going to a funeral and seeing some strange woman screaming at the top of her
lungs and weeping over the coffin. Apparently, this creepy situation happened all of the time
in ancient Egypt. Some women were professional mourners who would be hired to show extreme
grief at someone’s funeral. During the ceremony, these women would scream,
cry, and make a huge scene over someone they didn’t even know.
Ancient paintings show these women bawling their eyes out and shrieking while they touched a dead
person’s coffin. What’s even more disturbing is that this actually still happens today.
Hu Xinglian is a popular professional mourner from China who gets paid to scream and cry at funerals.
She said in an interview “Our entry into the world is splendidly dramatic,
so our exit from this world also needs to be spectacular.”
INTENSE MAGIC
Witchcraft was a huge part of ancient Egypt society, and sometimes their rituals would
become incredibly intense and scary. The Egyptians used magic for everything from
blessing their jewelry and statues, to cursing their enemies with death and disease. And
Egyptologists were shocked to discover just how violent some of the magic rituals actually were.
Priests in ancient Egypt were also known for using magic. They used all kinds of spells
and magical rituals to heal people, and many of them worshipped the god of medicine named Heka.
But the dark side of Egyptian magic is absolutely horrifying. There were cursed
knives used in human sacrifices, dark spell books that contained supposedly deadly curses,
and even magic wands made of ivory. If Harry Potter was set in ancient Egypt,
it probably wouldn’t be suitable for kids anymore.
EMBALMING PRACTICES
Mummies are already pretty creepy; but when you learn about how they were embalmed,
they become absolutely nightmarish. For example, did you know that the
first thing they did was remove the deceased person’s brain? Embalmers used an iron tool
to “draw out the brain through the nostrils.” After sucking the brain out through the nose,
they sliced open the body and took out all of the organs. And the organs weren’t just
discarded. Instead, they were placed in special jars that were buried with the dead person.
The entire mummification process took over 70 days to complete, and the embalmers would
work on dozens of bodies at the same time. This means that if you walked into their workshop,
you would find all kinds of dead people cut open and slowly drying out. One thing is for sure,
you’d have to have a strong stomach to work in that environment. Just imagine the smell!
THE BLACK TOMB
In 2018, archaeologists uncovered one of the most terrifying discoveries in Egyptian history:
a 59,500 pound mysterious black sarcophagus. The 2,000 year old tomb was found in Alexandria,
and many believed at first that it might be the final resting place of Alexander the Great.
However, when the tomb was finally opened
they instead found three skeletons and a rancid red and brown liquid.
Some people thought the tomb was cursed, and their fears were almost confirmed when it was
first opened. When archaeologists lifted the lid for the first time,
a smell escaped that was so bad it made them flee the scene. They later discovered that the strange
reddish sewage water inside was to blame for the putrid scent.
The three skeletons inside the tomb were most likely Egyptian military generals. And one of
them has what appears to be an arrow wound in its skull. As of today, experts are still examining
the sarcophagus to determine exactly where it came from and who the skeletons belong to.
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