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Online sales of mummified remains may expose buyers, sellers and postal workers to hidden hazards.
Disturb the dead and disaster may follow. Such is the pharaohs’ curse, the old legend that opening a tomb or handling a mummy could bring sickness, bad luck, or death. Scientists have never found evidence for anything supernatural. But a new study suggests the myth has acquired a very modern twist.
Today, you don’t need to enter an ancient tomb to encounter a mummy. You can buy one (or a piece of one) online and have it shipped to your door. And unlike the mythical curse, the hazards may be veery real: preserved human remains can harbor fungi and other microbes, as well as toxic residues from old embalming methods. Researchers found mummified heads, hands, feet, and other remains being sold and handled with little apparent attention to those risks.
Thanks largely to pop culture, the pharaohs’ curse is now inseparable from the story of Tutankhamun. But tales of Egyptian mummies punishing those who disturbed them began circulating in European culture long before his tomb was opened. Ancient Egyptian tombs did sometimes contain warnings, although these were generally intended to protect the grave and its ritual purity. The familiar idea that anyone who opens a mummy’s resting place will suffer bad luck, illness, or death developed largely as a Western cultural phenomenon.
Then Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, and the story exploded.
Lord Carnarvon, who financed the excavation, died the following year after an infected mosquito bite led to blood poisoning and pneumonia. Other deaths were soon folded into the legend, including those of American financier George Jay Gould, archaeologist Arthur Mace, and Carter’s secretary Richard Bethell. Howard Carter himself, however, lived until 1939—16 years after Carnarvon—despite spending years working inside the tomb.
A BMJ study found no evidence for a mummy’s curse. There were 44 Westerners associated with the excavation, including 25 considered potentially “exposed” to the curse. There was no significant difference in survival between exposed and unexposed people.
There wasn’t even a curse inscription inside Tutankhamun’s tomb to begin with.
But the legend raised a more interesting scientific question: could entering an ancient tomb genuinely make someone sick?
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Potentially, yes—although there’s nothing supernatural about it.
Mummification slows decomposition. But mummies aren’t sterile objects.
Preserved skin and other tissues can still harbor microorganisms, including bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. Changes in humidity, poor ventilation, or unsuitable storage can allow microbes to recolonize and grow. Museum conservators know this well enough that gloves, masks, lab coats, and controlled storage conditions are standard precautions around some remains.
Private collectors, however, aren’t necessarily aware of or interested in the biological implications. To an enthusiast, a mummified hand or head can look like an inert antique—confusing preserved with sterile. The new study suggests that assumption can lead to reckless casual handling.
The study analyzed 128 posts and auction lots, with some trend data spanning 2011–2025 and the main item-category breakdown focused on 2015–2025.
The selection was startling. Researchers recorded 27 cases involving isolated body parts such as hands or feet and 21 whole mummified heads. More than half of the sample consisted of heads, partial heads, tissue- or hair-bearing skulls, or tsantsas—so-called shrunken heads.
“The rise of the internet, especially social media, has amplified international trafficking and driven demand for unique cultural heritage, including mummified humans and animals,” Kirsty Squires, a professor of human bioarchaeology at the University of Staffordshire and the study’s lead author, said in a statement.
The online mummy market isn’t exactly new. A 2022 study of TikTok showed how a viral video from a human-remains dealer pushed the trade into much wider public view. The exposure brought the seller more followers and attention, but it also triggered a wave of criticism and discussion about the legality, ethics and colonial history of collecting human bodies.
A later 2024 investigation of four private Facebook groups found that, behind closed doors, the trade looked organized and normalized. Members developed specialized language, shared norms, and a noticeably more “professional” way of buying, selling and displaying remains, reinforcing a distinct collector identity around the practice.
But the new research asks another, more immediate question: what condition are the bodies being sold actually in?
Thirteen Facebook posts showed what researchers classified from photographs as suspected fungal colonization. They saw white, gray, yellow, and black spots, dark patinas and, in one case, black spots accompanied by a white cotton-like growth. Eight of those 13 posts involved items for sale.
The researchers could not swab the remains or identify the organisms, so they cannot say which fungi, bacteria, or yeasts were present. And visible mold probably does not capture the whole problem. Microbial colonization can exist without being obvious in a photograph.
So what might actually be growing on a centuries-old body? The photographs cannot answer that question. But previous research on mummies and burial environments points repeatedly toward one group of suspects: fungi.
The most plausible biological hazard is not some ancient pathogen suddenly awakening, but fungi. One genus in particular, Aspergillus, repeatedly appears in research on mummies, crypts and the so-called pharaohs’ curse.
Aspergillus is a common mold that produces microscopic airborne spores. Most healthy people inhale them without becoming ill, but heavy exposure can irritate the lungs, and some species can cause serious infections in people with weakened immune systems.
Mummified tissue can provide organic material for fungi, especially when remains are stored in humid, poorly ventilated conditions. Studies have identified Aspergillus, Penicillium and other fungi on mummies and inside burial environments. Disturbing contaminated remains can release spores into the air.
That helps explain why Aspergillus often surfaces in attempts to find a natural basis for the mummy’s curse. After the tomb of Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon was opened in 1973, several members of the conservation team died prematurely. Microbiologist Bolesław Smyk later identified Aspergillus flavus among fungi in samples from the tomb, prompting speculation that fungal exposure may have contributed to the deaths. No epidemiological study, however, established the fungus as the cause.
The new paper also notes the unproven theory that Aspergillus contributed to Lord Carnarvon’s death after Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened.
Fungi are not the only potential hazard, either. Mummification and later embalming have involved substances ranging from natron, oils, and resins to arsenic, mercury, and lead. Those heavy metals were particularly common in some 19th- and early-20th-century preservation fluids and can remain toxic long after they were applied.
The authors stress that historical mummies pose little infection risk to most healthy people. What concerns them is casual handling: 22 posts showed people touching mummified remains without gloves, while others displayed them uncovered inside homes.
Inside a museum or conservation laboratory, those risks can be managed. Inside someone’s living room, the researchers cannot assume the same precautions are being taken.
And then there is the mail.
One image in the study shows a cardboard parcel received by a collector in the United States. Inside were mummified human remains bought from Britain. The shipping labels showed that the parcel had passed through Royal Mail—even though Royal Mail prohibits shipping non-cremated human remains.
That changes who can potentially encounter these objects.
A collector may know there is a mummified head inside a box. The warehouse worker sorting it, the driver carrying it, or the customs officer opening it may have no idea.
The researchers examined policies from postal and courier companies across several countries and found that most prohibited intact human remains, although rules were sometimes difficult to locate or ambiguously worded. They also found evidence that sellers may use customs categories intended for educational models or collectible archaeological and anatomical objects rather than declaring exactly what a parcel contains.
“There is also evidence to show that mummified remains are being mailed to buyers, both nationally and internationally, with little (if any) consideration of the health and safety implications of these actions,” Squires noted. “Clearer, more prominent guidelines are needed to ensure buyers and sellers are unable to misinterpret or find loopholes in shipping policies.”
The researchers propose clearer postal rules, stronger marketplace oversight, and better training for customs and shipping personnel. They also want collectors to remember that mummies are not simply inert antiques. Even after centuries, preserved remains can still carry microbes and residues from old embalming chemicals.
The strange irony is that museums and archaeologists have long known preserved human remains require careful handling. But the internet has moved some of those remains out of controlled collections and into private homes, online marketplaces, cardboard boxes, and delivery networks where the people encountering them may not even know what they are touching.
The pharaohs probably cannot harm you. But mold, heavy metals, and poorly stored human tissue can.
The study was published in the International Journal of Cultural Property.

Aerospace engineer with a passion for biology, paleontology, and physics.
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© 2007-2025 ZME Science – Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.