An Egyptologist claims he fell ill with a mysterious illness that caused him to hallucinate and cough up blood after opening an ancient Egyptian tomb. Filmmaker and Egyptologist Ramy Romany said in a chat on The Jordan Harbinger Show that he fell ill in 2019 after digging a tomb for the Discovery Channel TV show Mummies Unwrapped.
“While filming Mummies Unwrapped, I had my closest moment with death ever,” Khaleej said in a previous interview with The Times. The team was filming an episode about the mummified remains that people claimed belonged to a biblical figure.
Romany explains her situation: “While filming the episode, we entered an unopened grave for years. We opened the door and the locals stayed away first to make sure there were no snakes or curses. Because we don’t believe in curses, we went straight down the stairs. The tomb was eternal. We kept going down and it was pretty dusty. And I was drinking it all. On the way back to Cairo that day, I began to feel unwell.
The next morning my fever was very high. I have never had such a high fever in my life. It had risen to 42°C and I started coughing up blood. They brought a doctor for me. I almost died.”
The tomb had not been opened for nearly 600 years, Romany said. In an interview with Jordan Harbinger, he added that fever causes hallucinations. His doctors, realizing it was caused by bats, snakes, or dust inside the tomb, gave him antibiotics.
While Romany doesn’t believe in the “curses” of the Pharaohs, she says it has a “scientific” truth to it. While the idea that ancient Pharaohs cursed anyone who disturbed their sleep is superstitious, ancient tombs contain fungal pathogens. While a study examining those who opened Egyptian tombs found no suspicious mortality, Lord Carnarvon, the victim of the so-called “curse,” is thought to have been infected with the fungal pathogen Aspergillus, which was transmitted when opening Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Although Romany is still not sure what kind of disease she got, she managed to tell her story by getting rid of this disease. “I recovered after four days, but it was tough,” Khaleej told the Times. “With or without the mummy curse, something in that tomb struck me.”
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