Ancient Egypt was a deadly time with many of its dangers still found today, but don’t worry The Daily Star has your back.
Coming face to face with dangers from the eras of Tutankhamun and Cleopatra probably isn’t very high up your list of priorities but the secret to a long life is to be prepared for the unexpected.
Sacred spots harking back to the famous time between 3100BC and 332BC can still be found in the modern world, with wonder and fascination surrounding the great mysteries of the past. But what is rumour and what is real?
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Like something from a low-budget Indiana Jones, The Daily Star sent in-house yes-man Hazard Harry down into the catacombs of the Great Pyramids under the guidance of expert historian Bettany Hughes OBE, to find out what dangers you need to be looking out for.
(Image: Will Ireland/PinPep)
She was supporting the release of new video game Total War: PHARAOH, which explored the “extraordinary bronze age climax of the Ancient Egyptian empire,” but took a few minutes to guide Hazard Haz through a maze of crippling curses and writhing snake pits.
Bettany separated mystical nonsense like mummies from the real dangers lurking in the tombs of the great pharaohs, to help the Daily Star’s resident crash test dummy understand what to ignore and what to genuinely worry about.
The first thing to watch out for is the infamous booby traps. “Definitely there were booby traps in pyramids,” Bettany said. “One hundred percent definitely. Fake shafts that open up in front of you.
(Image: Harry Thompson)
“I’ve been inside a pyramid, inside a robber’s shaft and we had to crawl across this really rotten bit of wood to get across… and I could see beneath me it moving with snakes and scorpions. Nobody had put them there but they had managed to get there so you can imagine that would definitely have happened in the ancient world too.
“[The ancient Egyptians] did everything they could to protect the tombs… if the pharaoh’s body got disturbed the idea was that the world might end, that there might be terrible natural disasters, [even] the apocalypse and the cosmos would revolt against you so they really did everything they could to try and protect [pharaos’] bodies.
(Image: Getty Images)
“There were definitely booby traps and from personal experience, they’re really perilous and if you take the wrong turning you would end up dead down a shaft.”
But it’s not just snake pits you need to be on the lookout for. “It was very risky robbing a tomb. You ran the risk of being impaled alive. You had to be pretty determined to be a tomb robber in the ancient world.”
Beyond the physical danger of snake pits and spikes, there was also the threat of curses. While not everyone reading this will necessarily buy into this, Bettany explained that ancient Egyptians took them very seriously. A warning Hazard Harry, the coward, took very seriously.
“We have reems and reems of papaya that has survived with curses on them and some written on the tomb walls.” She explained that at the time there was the idea of a hex, the belief that magic was “all around.”
(Image: Harry Thompson)
Not all of the ancient curses the average tomb raider might run into came from the pharaohs though. “Often it is ordinary people being really cross at the behaviour of their husbands or wives even after they’re dead.
“Ordinary people were into curses and magic, and royals were too,” so ignore this warning at your peril.
Many of the curses, she explained, were like people’s “violent fantasies being written down.”
Another great danger in the depths of the tombs comes from the bodies of people put to death and buried with their leaders. But Bettany explained that the danger wasn’t from mummies or zombies chasing you through the catacombs.
The idea of killing servants and animals was to help the pharaoh in the afterlife.
“I don’t believe there’s any kind of black magic around these things, but what you do have to be careful of are spores surviving on some of the bodies and artefacts for thousands of years.
(Image: Harry Thompson)
“That’s why when [researchers] do work on them they wear face masks. The other thing that’s a real issue in many of the sites not open to the public are bats.
“Bat poo can be incredibly dangerous. We’re talking about thousands of bats at a time. There are two very good reasons never to be a tomb raider in the 21st Century.”
For Hazard Harry, covered in bat poo and spores and trapped at the bottom of a snake pit, it’s too late, but take his lessons and save yourselves.
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