History's Most Cursed Tombs

The idea of a cursed tomb or burial site has so many origins, many of which have become so popularized by Hollywood that it's hard to remember that they are actually grounded in some truth. "The Mummy" may well be the most popular movie adaptation, building off the concept of the curses that come from, as the title suggests, a mummy. But these kinds of curses aren't exclusive to Egypt. They just so happen to be the most explicit about their curses, inscribing them right on the sarcophagi where they can't be missed. 

There's also the well-known consequences of building on Native American burial grounds. Readers Digest goes on an American trip to cursed places and, no surprise, a lot of them have to do with Native Americans getting a little post-death revenge on the colonial brutes who stole their land from them and disrespected sacred sites. 

According to World History Encyclopedia, cursed inscriptions existed simply to prevent grave robbers. The dead and buried would have been fully aware that no curses actually existed. But for the robber, it might be enough to steer them towards another grave at least, another profession at best.

But that doesn't explain away all cursed tombs. There are still some that have brought death, destruction, and warnings of more that can't be explained away as coincidence. Here are the most cursed tombs in history.

As Atlas Obscura details, Mikhail Gerasimov, a Soviet scientist, wanted to dig up the conqueror Tamerlane to reconstruct his face. That was kind of his thing as a doctor. He pioneered the field of paleo-anthropology, which is just another way of saying "reconstructing the dead." 

Despite an outpouring of dissent from religious leaders, he dug up the body, ignoring two consecutive warnings on the tomb itself. The first warning was inscribed in plain sight and well known: "When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble." The second was a surprise, hidden within the tomb itself: "Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I."

Three days later, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded Russia. Few would argue that Adolf Hitler would qualify as an invader more terrible than Tamerlane. Those that dispute the curse (as summarized in Advantour) point out that Operation Barbarossa was already planned, and Hitler's terror was well underway before the invasion of Russia. Which is all well and good, but in 1942, when the body was finally returned and buried with full Islamic rites, the Battle of Stalingrad changed the course of the war for the Russians. Curse reversed, right?

Poland has a bit of a broken history as a nation, but one of their brightest eras came thanks in part to King Casimir IV Jagiellon. Under his reign, according to Britannica, he famously subdued the Teutonic Knights once and for all, and he fought hard to retain the union between Poland and Lithuania — all the while recovering lost lands taken from previous kings. His efforts were largely successful, thus ranking him as one of Poland's most notable leaders. And his grave provided something of an impact as well.

Forty years after the mysterious circumstances surrounding King Tut's exhumation, a similar incident occurred in Poland at the tomb of Jagiellon. While Poland was a socialist country at the time, researchers were eager to figure out more about the king's death nearly 500 years after his funeral, according to Ancient Origins, and they dug right in.

Unfortunately, things did not go well for the excavation team. Unearthing the king under Wawel Chapel was easy enough, but it's the examination that started to claim so many lives. Even as the examination was in progress, those involved started to die from strokes and infections. Within days, four were dead. Within years, around 15 were dead.

While it has since been proven, according to History, that it was a fungus inside the coffin that was the cause of the death, there's always the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it was something more sinister.

William Shakespeare is known for a great many things. He is arguably the most famous writer of all time, his characters are household names, and his plays have been performed and remade by theaters across the globe. Which makes him an odd candidate for a cursed tomb, since it really has no reason to be, but it's there regardless, plain as day. 

It starts with an inscription on the tomb itself. Shakespeare's own name isn't on the tomb, according to Reuters, but this inscription is: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, to dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones."

And yet, someone did move his bones. After taking a survey of the tomb, it became apparent that someone, at some point in time spanning about 400 years since his death, had dug up the coffin and taken something of a souvenir. According to archaeologist Kevin Colls (via Reuters), there is reason to believe that said souvenir was the bard's skull. Not to invoke any Hamlet parallels, of course. Who took it remains unsolved, but if Shakespeare's inscription meant anything, that thief is cursed. And perhaps that's why they've never been found.

Saqqara, the ancient Egyptian city of the dead, is right up there with King Tut for the most popular burial site in Egypt. It can also trace its origin all the way back to the First Dynasty, where it hosted burials for more than 3,000 years, according to Smithsonian Magazine. In the rich history of Egypt, 3,000 years of royal burials can accumulate quite the cast of characters, many of whom would have wanted to protect themselves and their riches into the afterlife.

All this to say, this is a massive chamber with curses all around. In fact, there is so much buried there that, according to Business Insider, they have turned up over 160 different sarcophagi. And no sarcophagi would be complete without a few curses inscribed on it to prevent grave robbers or to genuinely curse them.

One example Business Insider provides is the burial of Ankhmahor. His sarcophagus essentially warns that whatever is done against his tomb "the same shall be done to your property." It also warns that any "impure" trespassers will be filled with the fear of seeing ghosts.

This doesn't sound all that horrible compared to the death and destruction of other curses, but a curse is a curse. In terms of curses-per-square-foot, there can't be any higher in the rankings than Saqqara, the City of the Dead.

It's not surprising that the man who could predict the future sought to protect his resting place with a curse — as well as a prediction of when his tomb would be raided. After all, nothing about Nostradamus is ever complete with a good prediction or two.

In a quintessential Nostradamus quatrain, he calls out whoever would dare disturb his tomb: "He who will open the tomb found/And will come to close it promptly/Evil will come to him, and one will be unable to prove/If it would be better to be a Breton or Norman King."

A report from York University goes into detail about what may or may not have happened when the tomb of Nostradamus was disturbed in 1793. In the heat of the French Revolution, French soldiers went after the fabled tomb, ignoring the supposed rumor that whoever opens the tomb would be killed. And that doesn't even include what Nostradamus threatened in his predictive poetry. But this is where the story gets a little fantastical. It's said that the soldier who opened the tomb found a sign around Nostradamus's neck that predicted that exact date. 

After drinking wine out of his skull (which is generally never a good idea), the soldier was then killed by a stray bullet. While that is all incredibly unlikely, the lore surrounding the tomb and its curses are still fabled to this day. 

The Kerameikos cemetery dates all the way back to the Bronze Age (2700-2000 B.C.E.), according to the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports. Considering how widespread the Greeks were at the height of their empire, it's no wonder this burial site became a crucial location in ancient Athens. 

Newsweek reported that, in 2020, a collection of 30 inscribed tablets were found at the bottom of a 2500-year-old Athenian well in the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos. Which sounds cursed enough as is, but the tablets bear individual curses and prayers to the Greek gods of the underworld.

Jutta Stroszeck, who led the excavation (via Haaretz), said that whoever ordered the curses inscribed on the tablets was unnamed, but the black magic is present and there for all to see, even though black magic was forbidden in Greece at the time.

While the well was only just found in 2016, the cemetery itself was first excavated in 1870, as per the Greek Ministry. Progress halted when World War II broke out, and everybody involved in the excavation died in the war, according to Haaretz. While it's hard to pin that one on the curse itself, it does follow the trend set by King Tut. Death just so happens to find those that disturb these tombs.