The Unlucky Mummy
The Unlucky Mummy isn’t actually a mummy but the mummy board, or coffin lid, of a high status woman who lived in around 950-900 BCE. Discovered in Thebes in the 1800s, the four young Englishmen who first purchased the mummy all died in unfortunate circumstances.
Rumors of the curse soon spread and, in the early 20th century, journalist William Thomas Stead wrote an article on the jinxed artefact. Stead went on to be one of the passengers on the doomed Titanic. It’s said that he told stories of the curse in the run up to the disaster, with many believing that the mummy itself caused the ship’s watery end. Today, the Unlucky Mummy is on display in the British Museum