Of all tales of the supernatural, this one is perhaps the best documented, the most disturbing and the most difficult to explain.

The Princess of Amen-Ra lived some 1,500 years before Christ. When she died, she was laid in an ornate wooden coffin and buried deep in a vault at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile. In the late 1890s, four rich, young, Englishmen visiting the excavations at Luxor were invited to buy an exquisitely fashioned mummy case containing the remains of Princess of Amen-Ra.

The man who won paid several thousand pounds and had the coffin taken to his hotel. A few hours later, he was seen walking out towards the desert. He never returned. The next day, one of the remaining three men was shot by an Egyptian servant accidentally. His arm was so severely wounded it had to be amputated. The third man in the foursome found on his return home that the bank holding his entire savings had failed. The fourth man suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling matches in the street.

Later a businessman from England bought it and donated it to the British Museum . As the coffin was being unloaded from a truck in the museum courtyard, the truck suddenly went into reverse and trapped a passer-by . Museum's night watchmen frequently heard frantic hammering and sobbing from the coffin . Other exhibits in the room were also often hurled about at night . One watchman died on duty; causing the other watchmen wanting to quit. Cleaners refused to go near the Princess too .Finally, the authorities had the mummy carried down to the basement . Figuring it could not do any harm down there. Within a week, one of the helpers was seriously ill, and the supervisor of the move was found dead on his desk.

By now, the papers had heard of it. A journalist photographer took a picture of the mummy case and when he developed it, the painting on the coffin was of a horrifying, human face. The photographer went home then, locked his bedroom door and shot himself.

Soon afterwards, the museum sold the mummy to a private collector. A well known authority on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky, visited the premises. Upon entry, she was seized with a shivering fit and searched the house for the source of "an evil influence of incredible intensity". She finally came to the attic and found the mummy case. "Can you exorcise this evil spirit ?" asked the owner . "There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever . Nothing can be done about it.

Eventually, a hard-headed American archaeologist (who dismissed the happenings as quirks of circumstance), paid a handsome price for the mummy and arranged for its removal to New York . In April of 1912, the new owner escorted its treasure aboard a sparkling, new White Star liner about to make its maiden voyage to New York.

On the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess of Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the Atlantic. The name of the ship was Titanic.

Cursed mummy

From 'Nos Loisirs', 14 January 1912

This is the only known picture ever published by the French press of the supposedly cursed mummy that some still think caused the sinking of the Titanic. The name of the evil priestess of god Amen-Ra was Tcheser-Ka-Ra and as early as January 1912, the press talked about the number of people who died because of the curse she cast on those who saw, touched or even just approached her.