Who doesn’t like themselves a good frightening Ancient Egyptian death mystery? These four statues here, found in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, depict Sekhmet, the cat goddess of sickness. Because she controlled disease, worshippers prayed to her for health. Tension between Ancient Egyptian health and disease-causing agents was recently resurrected by several articles published this past June of 2025 that reported a potential link between a deadly “Pharoah’s Curse” fungus and a cure for cancer. The bad news is that there is no evidence for this link. The good news is that scientists might have found a cure for some cancers by manipulating the genetic code of a particular fungus.
So, let me unpack what happened. The most famous Ancient Egyotian discovery of the 20th century was arguably the uncovering of King Tutankhamen’s (d. 1323 BCE) tomb. The wealthy Lord Carnarvon had funded the excavations, which after 1922 made global news headlines for the vast treasure the tomb contained. In the decades that followed, many of the excavators passed away, and news agencies began to talk about an ancient curse that was triggered with the opening of the tomb.
But, the deaths of the excavators were not caused by a curse. Lord Carnarvon, for instance, was already ill with pneumonia when the tomb was opened, and died in 1923 after being infected by a mosquito bite that he managed to slice open while shaving. And, relevant to recent headlines, neither was there evidence of a particular fungus that killed the excavators.
Nonetheless, it is so extremely catchy to run a headline like “Deadly ‘Pharoah’s Curse fungus’ could be used to fight cancer,” which is in fact what happened repeatedly this summer. What these articles are referring to is a study published in the journal _Nature Chemical Biology_ wherein a team of scientists manipulated the fungus called Aspergillus flavus to make it better able to attack leukemia cells. It is a terrific potential for cancer treatment that has miles to go before it actually manifests. *Perhaps* it existed in tombs, and later caused excavators lung infections. But there was no proof – it sounded great, though.
Sources: _Popular Science_ “Deadly ‘Pharoah’s Curse fungus’ could be used to fight cancer”, Laura Baisas, June 23, 2025. See also: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-curse-of-the-curse-of-the-pharaohs/. And the following article goes into the whole story in really interesting detail:The Fungus behind King Tut’s Curse is a LIE – Skepchick https://share.google/NkWrLabGBDpIUe1xv.
