Ancient Artifacts That Are Said To Be Cursed

Throughout history, humans have been sure that just about anything can carry with it a curse. There are songs that are said to be cursed, entire historical families that are famously cursed, and even a U.S. congressional seat that is supposed to be cursed. People just love to believe that the inanimate objects around them are imbued with evil and just waiting to strike. But while a creepy doll for sale on eBay might look the part of a cursed object, it's the truly ancient artifacts that imbue their curses with the weight of time. The fact that they have existed for centuries or even millennia gives the curses attached to ancient artifacts a gravitas that modern cursed objects can't compete with.

Of course, just because the object is ancient doesn't mean the curse is. In many cases, the original owners or creators of these items would probably be shocked that, far into the future, people would attach negative powers to them. Other times, however, the curse was meant to be there from the beginning. Here are some of the world's most interesting ancient artifacts that are said to be cursed.

History's oldest cold case might be who killed Ötzi the Iceman, both literally and metaphorically. Ötzi died around 5,300 years ago and his body was preserved in the frozen Italian Alps until 1991, when his astonishingly well-preserved corpse was stumbled upon by some hikers. The authorities were notified and experts got involved, before Ötzi was eventually removed from the icy mountains and studied. His body was put on display at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in 1998, and facial reconstructions (as pictured above) have given us an idea of what the ancient wanderer looked like. In 2007, another shocking twist emerged when it was discovered that he had been murdered.

At some point, stories of Ötzi carrying a curse began. In a story with parallels to the alleged curse of King Tut's tomb, seven people who found or later worked on Ötzi were said to have been killed by said curse between 1992 and 2005. This included one of the hikers who found him (died from a fall in a blizzard), the forensic pathologist who helped remove the body from the Alps (car crash), and the only journalist who was allowed to film the removal of Otzi's body (brain tumor). 

Not everyone finds this conspiracy theory fun. When a scientist who did DNA analysis on Ötzi died suddenly in 2005, his colleagues were furious when reporters started calling asking about his death possibly being related to the curse. 

On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic. Historians would have you believe this was due to bad planning and poor leadership, but what if it was actually due to the cursed mummy that was on board the supposedly unsinkable boat? One that had already brought death and ruin to everyone who came in contact with it?

That theory would be more convincing if the aforementioned mummy, known as "The Unlucky Mummy" (pictured above), was actually a mummy, had been connected to previous calamities, or — and this is key — had actually been on the Titanic. The Unlucky Mummy is a painted board for a sarcophagus, basically, a lid for the inner of the two coffins a mummy was usually contained in. There are a variety of versions told about its ability to curse its owners for decades before the Titanic sank, with the first mentions of its evil powers recounted in a newspaper in 1904. Reporters, people who were on the Titanic, and even bored museum guards are believed to have expanded on the legend over the century-plus since then.

Despite there being no truth to the story whatsoever, this legend is so prolific that the British Museum addresses it at length in their official description of the item, pointing out that it was already in their collection in 1912 and never left the museum at any point from the time they acquired it until 1990.

Around 1785, a particularly large ancient Roman ring, made of gold, was discovered in England. While the exact details of how and when it was uncovered are unknown, whoever found it eventually sold it to a rich local family. It remained in their collection of artifacts for centuries and was eventually gifted to the National Trust along with the rest of the family's estate. Etched around the band of the ring are the words "Senicianus live well in God."

There would be no reason to connect a curse to the ring if not for an amazing archeological coincidence. Decades after it was discovered, an ancient Roman curse tablet was found about 80 miles away from the ring's location. The tablet reads, "To the God Nodens. Silvianus has lost a ring ... among those who bear the name of Senicianus to none grant health until he bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens." Historians connected the ring to the curse, and it became known as the "Ring of Silvianus."

Regardless of whether the curse ever harmed anyone named Senicianus, it may have inspired one of the most cursed rings in literature: JRR Tolkien's "One Ring." The ring that causes so many problems in Middle Earth may have been based on this real-life one, since Tolkien was tasked with researching the etymology of the name of the god mentioned on the curse tablet just two years before he published "The Hobbit."

The small carved rocks that became known as the Hexham Heads might be ancient, but they also might not be. The Celts did leave verifiable examples of carved heads that are not too dissimilar from these small ones, so the idea they are from that period is not a giant leap. While some experts believe they are Celtic artifacts, studies have been inconclusive, and they may be from as recently as the Middle Ages. 

What we do know is that the pair of heads were found near Hadrian's Wall by two boys in 1971. Almost immediately, people with even a passing connection to the heads began getting a terrifying visitor in the night. A neighbor to whom their mother showed the heads, a researcher who studied the artifacts, and even the researcher's young daughter all said they saw a werewolf-like creature in their homes after they came into contact with the boys' discovery. The tale of these spooky hauntings became a big enough story that the BBC covered them in 1976, in a terrifying report that left a deep scar on many young children who saw it at the time.

Their connection to the Celts may have been what inspired the idea of this curse, as many things connected to Celtic history are given a mystical, spooky sheen in modern English culture, even more so than those from medieval or ancient Roman periods (another possible origin story for The Hexham Heads).

The Björketorp Runestone is an exceptionally tall runestone in Sweden that is carved with a much-studied curse. Believed to have been erected by a Danish chieftain who controlled the area in the seventh century, the 12-foot-tall stone was meant to protect a grave, but the exact meaning of the few lines etched on its surface is still debated by experts in ancient runes. 

According to the Old Norse Text Database, the runes translate to: "I, master of the runes(?) conceal here runes of power. Incessantly (plagued by) maleficence, (doomed to) insidious death (is) he who breaks this (monument). I prophesy destruction/prophecy of destruction." A version in plainer English has been proposed as: "I have here the secret meaning of powerful runes. He who destroys the monument will forever be tormented by evil witchcraft. He shall die a treacherous death. I prophesy ruin." Curses like these were not uncommon in the ancient world, and Björketorp's is quite tame compared to the many similar curses that threatened such actions as emasculation.

Regardless of the exact wording the carver intended to communicate to people who read the runes, it seems clear of the overall intention, especially since the Björketorp Runestone is located in an ancient burial ground: don't disturb this grave or bad things will happen to you. Maybe that is why, out of a group of four similar and likely related rune-carved stones from the area, Björketorp is the only one that is still in its original location.

One of the most famous curses of all time involves the ancient Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamun, and many people believe his burial chamber is one of history's most cursed tombs. Plenty has been written about the people who supposedly died sudden and unexpected deaths due to their connection to the opening of King Tut's tomb, but less well-known is that a set of trumpets found there have their own special curse. 

The trumpets of Tutankhamun are not the flashiest items from his tomb. One is made of silver and the other of bronze, along with their wooden stoppers. But while the curse on the tomb itself seemed to only kill random individuals, the power ascribed to the trumpets is far greater. It is said that every time they have been blown since the discovery, a war has started, the conflicts being summoned by the sound of the instruments. 

This claim is backed up by statements from no less than Egyptologist Hala Hassan, curator of the Egyptian Museum's Tutankhamun collection. The trumpets were stolen along with several other items during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and when they were recovered a few months later, Hassan told the media that a museum staff member had blown one of the trumpets just a few days before the revolt started. He claimed this also happened before wars began in 1967 and 1991. It also so happened that the BBC was allowed to record the sound of the trumpets in 1939, shortly before the beginning of World War II.

Pompeii is one of the most famous "dark tourism" sites in the world. People come in droves to see the site of a terrible catastrophe, where a town was completely wiped out and buried after the eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius. While the site naturally has a gift shop, some unscrupulous visitors who want a more authentic souvenir take the liberty of picking up rocks, pieces of pottery, walls, mosaics, or other small and seemingly insignificant ancient detritus found in the historical site. But thanks to an alleged curse, they often come to regret slipping them in their pockets. 

It does not appear to be the actual artifacts in Pompeii that are cursed, but rather the act of stealing that makes them so. Hundreds of tourists have sent back small items they pilfered from the ruins during their visits, many along with notes that they had suffered bad luck ever since. The site's archaeological superintendent Massimo Osanna told The Italian Tribune, "They write that the stolen pieces have brought them nothing but trouble. They say they can trace back all their family troubles to their theft at Pompeii." 

Some of the problems blamed on the thefts include breast cancer, financial difficulties, and broken bones. Others reference general bad luck or supposed curses that have affected whole families. And some of the pilferers say they never experienced any negative effects but heard that others had, so they sent back the things they took, just in case. 

Many have heard of Pele's Curse, which says that if you take small lava rocks (also called Pele's Tears, pictured above), sand, pumice, or anything similar from Hawai'i, you will have bad luck. A revered goddess in Hawai'ian culture, Pele lives in a volcano and never actually threatened anyone who took her lava rocks with a curse. In fact, the whole idea of a curse is far more of a Western concept than a native Hawai'ian one, where one would be expected not to move rocks without permission out of respect for every part of the island. Despite this, the legend of the curse is widespread. Why? Thanks to the use of the alleged bad luck as a way to make tourists behave. 

Tourists who visit Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park are constantly taking little pieces of it back home with them. To be clear, it's illegal to take things from any National Park, but that didn't stop people. So one government worker came up with a solution: a guard started telling people that if they brought lava rocks home with them, they would be cursed by Pele. 

The story can be traced as far back as 1946, and guidebooks now run with the idea. So many people are now aware of the curse that every year thousands of pounds of rocks and sand are mailed back, often with letters blaming the rocks for everything from losing a business to jail sentences to bad relationship breakups.

The Lydian Horde, also known as the Karun Treasure and the Croesus Treasure, was a massive haul of 363 priceless artifacts from the ancient kingdom of Lydia, located in modern-day Turkey. The loot came from graves, taken by literal grave robbers who plundered various burial mounds and illegally removed what they found in the 1960s. The men involved eventually sold it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who put several dozen pieces on display in the 1980s, despite knowing the items had been obtained illegally. While the museum tried to hide the sketchy way they acquired the horde, they were eventually found out and returned the 219 pieces in their collection to Turkey in 1993. Turkey is still attempting to reacquire the remaining pieces from the horde for their museums.

But based on the alleged curse attached to the horde, they might not want to have all of it back. The story of the terrible fates that befell the men who took the items originally is more melodramatic than any soap opera. It includes deadly farming accidents, decapitation by a jealous husband, being blinded by spices, prison sentences, insanity, cancer, paralysis, and much more. 

One thing that definitely happened is that once the pieces were back in Turkey, the museum's director sold off a particularly impressive piece (pictured) to pay off his gambling debts, replacing it with a replica. He was caught and sentenced to 13 years in prison, blaming the curse for his situation.

The good news is that the Gold of Tolosa isn't around anymore to cause people problems. The bad news is that it is going to cause everyone a whole lot of problems if it is ever found. 

The gold hoard is said to originally have been stolen by the Gauls from Delphi in Greece in 297 BC. However, when they returned home to an area of what is now France, near Toulouse, they discovered that since they pilfered the treasure from a holy place, the gold was cursed. To escape the curse, which was already making people sick, the Gauls decided to throw it all into a lake. Then, the story goes, ancient Romans found the sunken treasure when they invaded Gaul. The Roman general Quintus Servilius Caepio brought it up and his battalion tried to bring it back to Rome, but thanks to the curse, none of them made it home except him, and he died in disgrace and with no male heirs. As for the treasure; it had seemingly disappeared.

It isn't known where the gold is today, but the curse is believed to live on. The Italians have a proverb that translates to "he has the gold of Toulouse," which means someone has possession of something they shouldn't. And infamous future-seer Nostradamus made a prediction that its rediscovery would bring a disaster, writing in part, "In Toulouse, ... making a deep pit ... a found treasure will upset everyone..." (via "The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus").