Egyptian God Theater Critics Are the Worst Theater Critics

Joseph Lindon Smith, via the Smithsonian Institution

While virtually everyone has heard of the alleged “Curse of Tutankhamen's Tomb,” there are a number of “curse” stories related to ancient Egypt that are much more obscure.  The old Egyptians lived in a world where what we would call “magic” was a part of everyday life, and according to some people, they didn’t hesitate to use it...even many centuries after their death.  One such account was recorded by an artist named Joseph Lindon Smith.  It was published in the posthumous collection of his writings, “Tombs, Temples, and Ancient Art.”  Smith started his career as a portrait painter, but after visiting Egypt in 1898, he became fascinated by the country’s antiquities.  His exquisite paintings of Egypt’s archaeological past caught the eye of Egyptologists, who hired him to make copies of the fragile wall paintings in newly-excavated tombs.  

In 1909, Smith was working on recent excavations in the Valley of the Kings.  With him were his wife Corinna and two of their closest friends, archaeologist Arthur Weigel and his wife Hortense.  One day while exploring the area, Joseph and Arthur came across a natural amphitheater in the Valley of the Queens.  Smith loved amateur theatricals--he even had a small theater behind his home in America--so this discovery gave him an idea: he and his wife and friends would put on a play.

And not just any old play, either.  Smith was surely one of the most ambitious playwrights in history.  He and Arthur Weigel wrote a play aimed at interceding with the Egyptian gods to remove a curse which had been put on the heretical pharaoh Akhenaten, which had condemned him to be a restless, wandering spirit for all of time.  They hoped that the performance would lift the curse and enable the pharaoh to finally find eternal rest.

The quartet scheduled their play for January 26, the presumed anniversary of Akhenaten’s death.  They held a dress rehearsal on the 23rd.  The play opened with the god Horus (Smith) offering to grant the spirit of Akhenaten (as portrayed by Hortense) a wish.  The pharaoh asked to see his mother, Queen Ty, who was played by Corinna.  As Hortense raised her arms in supplication, a peal of thunder and a flash of lightning struck near them.  Akhenaten asked his mother to bring him comfort by reciting one of his hymns to the sun god.  The instant Corinna began the hymn, a wind came up which was so violent, she was unable to be heard.  Corinna, feeling it would not be queen-like to retreat, tried to finish her poem, but when the performers began being pelted with sand, rain, and hailstones the size of tennis balls, most of them were forced to flee to the shelter of a nearby tomb.  Corinna, however, insisted on standing dramatically on her rock, reciting the long hymn to the very end.  When her husband finally persuaded her to leave the stage, she was soaking wet, but elated that she had managed to defy both the elements and the ancient priests of Amun.

Soon afterwards, the quartet got a lesson in what happens when you defy Egyptian deities. Corinna began feeling pain in her eyes, and Hortense had intense stomach cramps.  That night, both women had the same dream: they were in the temple of Amun, the Egyptian king of the gods.  The statue of the god suddenly came to life and hit them with his flail; Corinna was struck over her eyes, Hortense on her stomach.  By the following morning, Corinna’s eyes were so painful that she was brought to a eye specialist in Cairo.  The doctor found that she had one of the worst cases of trachoma (an eye infection which often causes blindness) that he had ever seen.  The following day, Hortense was also hospitalized.  She had to undergo a stomach operation which nearly killed her.  Most of those who had attended the rehearsal also fell ill in various ways.  Fortunately, everyone eventually recovered completely.

Our thespians were left in that state known as “sadder but wiser.”  Their performance was permanently cancelled.  Akhenaten would just have to resolve his afterlife issues on his own.