Hollywood has appropriated the idea of the "cursed tomb" so much that we sometimes forget that it existed before the cinema, and in general the modern era. As we also forget that the curse is not the exclusive prerogative of Egyptian tombs. There are in many places strange stories connected with the last residence of some important - usually - person.
Here are some of the most cursed graves - if that term is valid, of course, because I don't know how far a system of measuring the curse stands:
The Curse of the Mummy
You can't even say those two words “cursed grave” without immediately thinking of the "father" of all cursed tombs - that of Tutankhamun.
Many strange things have happened since that day in 1923 when the Egyptian king's tomb was discovered by an archaeological team, things that extended beyond the two men responsible for starting the dig. Incidentally these two were the archaeologist Howard Carter and his friend, George Herbert, Lord of Carnarvon.
According to History.com, just two months after the tomb was opened, Herbert died of blood poisoning caused by a mosquito bite on his cheek. The media of the time did not miss the opportunity for clickbait, writing that Herbert he fell victim to a curse that warned of death to those who disturbed the royal tombs in the area.
The deaths did not end with Herbert, however. According to "Google Arts and Culture", his half-brother also died of blood poisoning. But others, such as Douglas Reid, a radiologist who examined the mummy, and George J. Gould, who visited the tomb, met an early death.
The bad luck continued for other people, such as Sir Bruce Ingram, a friend of Carter's, who saw his house burn and much later flood. It is said that this was because he accepted as a gift one of the objects found in the tomb.
Although a medical study from the National Library of Medicine he did his best to disprove the existence of the curse, well, it's kind of hard not to notice a slight connection to these deaths.
The “Scourge of God”
As the American site "Atlas Obscura" details, a Soviet scientist named Mikhail Gerasimov, he wanted to exhume Tamerlane, the infamous conqueror, the "scourge of God", in order to reconstruct his face. Generally, this was the subject to which this doctor appealed, as he pioneered the field of paleoanthropology—which is just another way of saying "re-creating the dead."
Religious leaders came forward and shouted "no" to him, but he did it anyway, digging up his body and ignoring the two successive warnings on the tomb itself. The first warning was written in plain sight and was known:"When I rise from the dead, the world will tremble." The second was a surprise, hidden within the tomb itself:"Whoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I."
Three days later, Germany launched the famous "Operation Barbarossa", i.e. her invasion of Russia. Obviously it's easy to say that the curse is only in the imagination of any foresight, as the business was planned long ago, it didn't happen overnight. Let it be that Hitler's "terror" had already begun before. On the other hand, when in 1942 the body was returned and buried according to Islamic rites, a month later, the Battle of Stalingrad had been won, changing the course of the war in favor of the Soviets. And there they say that the curse was "reversed". OK, let everyone believe what they want.
The last prophecy of Nostradamus
It doesn't really surprise us that the man, who "saw" the future, tried to protect his resting place with a curse - but also with a prediction of when his grave would be raided.
He says, therefore, in a quatrain he wrote precisely for this purpose:
“He who will open the grave
And he will come to shut him up immediately
The bad it will come to him, and no one will be able to prove it
If it will be better for him to be a British or a Norman king".
Quite poetic. However, a report at the University of York details what happened when Nostradamus' tomb was captured in 1793. In the heat of the French Revolution, a group of French soldiers found the legendary tomb, ignored any curse it was said to hold, and opened it.
And here comes the imagination to complement the story. It is said that the soldier who opened the tomb found an inscription around Nostradamus' neck that predicted the exact date that the tomb would finally be opened. But the soldier was not daunted, he took his skull, filled it with wine and drank from it. Seconds later, he was dropped dead by a stray bullet.
Although this all sounds like a huge lie, the legends and curses surrounding his grave are still circulating to this day.
William Shakespeare's skull
Now why the grave ofWilliam Shakespeare to be considered cursed, really, we have no idea. He is the most famous writer of all time, neither a king nor some bloodthirsty conqueror. How are curses connected to this genius?
We begin with an inscription on the tomb itself. The author's own name is not listed, according to Reuters, only these words:
"Good friend, for Jesus' sake, refrain from digging up the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man who does not mind these stones. And cursed be he who moves my bones."
Although the warning is more than clear, someone was found who did move his bones. After an investigation of his grave, it was found that someone unknown, at some point in all these years that he has been dead, had dug up the coffin and taken something as a souvenir. According to archaeologist Kevin Kohls, there are reasons to believe that the memento in question was the bard's own skull.
Who might have taken it - if he did - is a mystery that remains unsolved, but if Shakespeare's inscription has any grain of truth, then this thief must not have gone very far.
The Curse of the Samurai
The Taira no Masakado or else one of the first and most legendary samurai who ever lived, according to the Guardian, had as exciting a death as his life. A fearless fighter and theoretically invincible, there was only one place on his body that could be mortally wounded:his head. And this, because as the legends later said, it was the only place that the reptile that gave birth to him forgot to lick.
So you already suspect what happened next. Yes, his enemies cut off his head. This was finally the only part of his body that his family managed to bury, in a location that today belongs to the city of Tokyo.
So when the Ministry of Finance burned down during an earthquake in 1923, the superstitious Japanese Emperor he blamed Masakado for it even though he had been dead for over a thousand years. The state planned to rebuild the ministry over Masakado's grave, but that's when people started suddenly dying. A total of 14 lives were lost within five years at the facility and after the death of the finance minister himself, the plans were abandoned. Smart move, but it wasn't enough.
The strange occurrences continued to such an extent that even the United States Army of Occupation refused to touch it in 1945, according to the Guardian.
The most outrageous was done by a bank shortly after it built a branch on the site. Some time later, in 2002, he declared bankruptcy and in order to appease hisspirit who had sent the curse, opened an account in his name, that is, in the name of the dead samurai! But it was already too late, the bank was unable to reverse the negative momentum and closed permanently.
Today, on the spot there is a small garden dedicated to the memory of Masakado and - logically - very difficult someone will try to rebuild anything there.