Seven Cursed Artifacts in Museums Worldwide

Key facts

• The Hope Diamond is a 45.52-carat blue diamond on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
• Evalyn Walsh McLean purchased the Hope Diamond from Pierre Cartier and had it blessed by a priest to cleanse it of its curse.
• Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1958, mailing it in a plain brown paper package.
• Tutankhamen's tomb was opened by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings.
• Lord Carnarvon died five months after the tomb's opening from an infected mosquito bite.
• The 'Unlucky Mummy' at the British Museum is a decorated coffin lid of a priestess of Amen-Ra, dating to around 950 BC.
• The Delhi Purple Sapphire is an amethyst, not a sapphire, and was reportedly looted from the Temple of Indra during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
• Edward Heron-Allen donated the Delhi Purple Sapphire to the Natural History Museum in London in 1944 with a note calling it 'trebly accursed'.
• The Busby Stoop Chair is a 17th-century wooden chair at Thirsk Museum in North Yorkshire, England.
• Thomas Busby was hanged in 1702 and allegedly cursed the chair so that anyone who sat in it would die.
• The Ring of Silvianus is a 4th-century Roman gold ring found in Silchester in 1785, now at The Vyne in Hampshire.
• A curse tablet found near the ring reads: 'Senicianus, do not enjoy good health until you bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens.'
• J.R.R. Tolkien consulted on excavations near Nodens's temple in 1929 and may have been inspired by the ring.
• Ötzi the Iceman is a 5,300-year-old mummified man found in the Alps in 1991.
• Seven people connected to Ötzi's discovery have died prematurely, including a mountaineer and a forensic examiner.
• Ötzi's belongings are at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.