Dr Jasmine Day: ‘Someone Who Has Power and Who Understands'

Who owns the “truth” about the past? Today’s power struggle between scientific and sensational interpretations of ancient Egypt began with the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb a century ago. In recently rediscovered private letters, psychics and tabloid journalists challenged Howard Carter’s authority with dire warnings about the supernatural vengeance that awaited him. The invention of “King Tut’s Curse” reveals the eccentric personalities and toxic rivalries that gave birth to a legend.

Dr Jasmine Day, author of The Mummy’s Curse: Mummymania in the English-speaking World (2006), is an anthropologist and Egyptologist specialising in mummymania, the “mummy’s curse” legend and the ethics of mummy display. She has published papers in Egypt: Ancient Histories, Modern Archaeologies (2013), Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures (2014), Victorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt (2020), La Collection Jean‑Marcel Humbert (2022), Alternative Egyptology (2024) and in academic and popular Egyptology journals. She has also contributed to the International Congress on Mummy Studies, Tea with the Sphinx and International Society for the Study of Egyptomania conferences and documentaries including Egypt’s Unexplained Files (2019). Day is President of The Ancient Egypt Society of Western Australia Inc.

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