The second popular motive concerning the opened tombs is "The curse of the pharaohs", which allegedly comprehends anyone who will disturb the peace of the dead king. The most famous case is the curse of Tutankhamen, in whose tomb they found a sign with the inscription "Death will catch everyone who breaks Pharaoh's peace with easy steps". There was a curse in the fact that within about a year and a half six people who took part in the opening of the tomb died from supposedly natural causes. The secretary, for example. Or an Egyptian prince who was present at a press conference to commemorate the event. Howard Carter, the most important tomb raider, lived another sixteen years, by the way. But other cases are also "known" - for example, in 1993 the royal tomb was opened, in which the inscription "The Great Goddess Hathor will punish anyone who dares to desecrate this tomb twice" was "found". Shortly afterward, the head of the excavation had a heart attack.
The main problem with the "curse of the pharaohs" - apart from the fact that these versions do not stand up to any criticism from a logical point of view - is that Egyptian magical and religious practice did not have a concept of "curse" as such. Magical ways of liming, say, the lover of his wife existed, but this rite required physical contact with a person. And Egyptians could not conduct any magic "fire on squares" and saw no sense in that. The same applies to the reviving mummies. Egyptians in principle did not understand the idea of reviving the dead and did not distract them from the most important posthumous existence. They never returned the dead even in fairy tales, did not turn to them for advice, did not see the dead in their sleep (there is still large number of dreamers, but such motive is not mentioned there once). And they wouldn't have imposed a spell on the deceased king, obliging him to get up in three thousand years and start killing him.
Also, it is necessary to notice that the majority of tombs, both imperial, and private, repeatedly opened still Egyptians. And if ordinary people were punished for it (well, the criminal offense in fact and court records were preserved), then the kings opening the tombs of their predecessors, there was nothing for it. And it was done for a variety of purposes: from the banal robbery (for example, the king could have dragged from the tomb of his beloved grandfather carved stone slabs, which were decorated with walls, slightly paint and put in his own tomb) to reburial in accordance with new religious trends. Or is the curse of the pharaohs not extended to the pharaohs?
MONEY - MONEY...
Money didn't exist in ancient Egypt either. To be more precise, the Egyptians thought of making silver, copper, and gold a kind of universal equivalent, but the metal was not directly involved in the trade. There was a measure of weight called "deben", the size of which for several thousand years has changed from 13.5 grams to about 90 grams. Deben was conditionally divided into twelve "whales".
Contracts of sale, preserved in abundance, are made up about this way: "Here is the price I gave for the thing: Shroud of thin linen price of five whales of silver, a cut of linen price of three whales of silver and one third, a bronze vessel price of eighteen debenes of silver, ten shirts of linen price of four deben of silver, a pot of honey price of five whales of silver, only twenty-three debenas of one whale and one third of silver. That is, in fact, there was a natural exchange.
And coins appeared only at the end of the sixth century BC.
THE FOURTH MYTH: IT IS ENOUGH TO CONSIDER THE FRESCOES
Terrible mistakes in the image and description of ancient Egyptian life often do just those authors who carefully acquainted with the sources and studied many Egyptian pictures. Well, for example, still know that the ancient Egyptians wore white hip bandages, right? It would seem, just a genre scene.
Only ninety percent of the known images are frescoes from tombs. If everything is much better with texts (textbooks on various disciplines, court archives, personal correspondence, and household records have been preserved), then we were not lucky with the fine arts. It would seem that the tombs depict the most ordinary life: fieldwork, hunting, holidays, lunches ... Take the information and enjoy it. But if you think about it (or at least read the specialists who have already thought about it), it becomes clear that it is not this world that is painted on the walls of the tombs, but the light that is there. Where everything will be about the same, of course, but much better and a little different.
In particular, they dress quite differently in the other world. In reality, it is very stupid to walk on the equator in rags that do not cover your shoulders (the Egyptians were not black), and go out in the field in white even stupider. Besides, all the clothes found during the excavations are colored.
In general, one should be cautious about any everyday evidence from tombs. For example, many women have small cones of unknown purpose on their heads. Amateur connoisseurs confidently say that these cones were made of fragrant oils or wax, during the evening slowly melted and smelled nice. Unlike amateurs, science, unlike amateurs, has no idea about it, although this version was put forward along with many others.
In fact, the recipe for creating a plus or minus reliable texts and other works about ancient Egypt is simple. Yes, of course, due to the fact that this period is studied quite well, a lot of information about it belongs to the category "everyone knows". Ancient Egyptian culture over the last couple of centuries has become fashionable more than once, and the fashion is always simplified to the point where it is impossible not to say "made primitive". Therefore, do not buy into the deceptive wealth of information in the head of any fan of Brendan Fraser, it is better to contact James Fraser or one of his colleagues - because there are many scientific and popular scientific works on Ancient Egypt, and it is no less interesting to read them than to watch films about revived mummies.
LITTLE THINGS
Horses in Egypt appeared very late, somewhere in the XVII century BC. The Egyptians did not ride on top and even, apparently, did not perceive the horse as a separate living being - the personal name was not given to the horse, but to the whole chariot team.
The word "Pharaoh", which has taken root as a designation of the Egyptian king, was never an official title, but served rather as a euphemism, and came into use very late, in the middle of the first millennium BC. Therefore, some "Pharaoh Cheops" is a rough anachronism.
Most Egyptian texts mention beer as one of the main foodstuffs. Therefore, the characters of novels about ancient Egypt constantly drink beer, and the company Carlsberg even released an ale "according to the ancient Egyptian recipe". If you take the real Egyptian recipe, it turns out that the word "beer" once translated the name of something like a liquid porridge of coarse-ground grain. So this "beer" really ate, including children. Although, of course, alcoholic beverages existed in ancient Egypt.