Playing chicken

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This article was published 05/06/2021 (1921 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s impossible to say whether the curse was effective, even though there is no doubt that all of its intended victims are currently dead.

That’s probably because the latest curse to make headlines around the globe involves a 2,300-year-old ceramic jar containing the bones of a dismembered chicken that archeologists believe was intended to kill 55 people in ancient Greece.

Archeologists uncovered the “cursed” pottery in 2006, sitting beneath the floor of the Athenian Agora Commercial Classics Building, northwest of the famous Acropolis ruins. There were 55 names inscribed on the jar — supposedly the curse’s hapless targets — and it was pierced by a large, iron nail.

 

In a scholarly article, Yale University classics professor Jessica Lamont said nails are commonly associated with ancient Greek curses as they had “an inhibiting force and symbolically immobilized or restrained the faculties of victims.”

The presence of a chicken, no older than seven months, may indicate a desire to transfer the “chick’s helplessness and inability to protect itself” to the curse’s victims, Lamont wrote. After examining handwriting on the jar, she speculated two people were behind the curse and it may have had something to do with a lawsuit.

It’s a quirky bit of ancient history, but the scary story of this ancient Greek jar has a long way to go before it stacks up with today’s magically alarming list of Five of the World’s Most Infamous and Strange Curses:

 

5) The legendary curse: Frank Sinatra’s My Way

The history of the hex: There are a lot of strange curses out there, including the so-called “Superman Curse,” wherein terrible fates befall actors who portray the Man of Steel on TV programs and in movies. But arguably the oddest curse of the modern era involves Frank Sinatra’s classic rendition of My Way, wherein Old Blue Eyes famously croons: “I travelled each and every highway/And more, much more than this, I did it my way.”

According to multiple online reports, that song is considered cursed — at least in the Philippines. The curse is fuelled by the fact that in, roughly, the last 20 years between six and 12 people have been slain while belting out My Way during performances at karaoke bars in the Philippines.

“In one case, a 29-year-old was shot dead by a security guard because he thought the guy was off-key,” according to a report in the India Times. “In another story, the friend of one singer overheard the people at the next table commenting on how (terrible) he was, so the friend (an off-duty cop) stood up and drew his gun on them, chasing them the hell out of the bar and forever convincing the man’s family to not play My Way at family gatherings.”

It’s reportedly at the point where some Filipinos — even those who love this song — will refuse to sing it in public to avoid becoming the next victim of the curse. There are also reports of the song being banned from karaoke playlists in some Manila bars after complaints about out-of-tune renditions resulting in mayhem and even murders. The most likely explanation involves the fact karaoke is a popular pastime in the Philippines, and breaches of etiquette — laughing at other performers, performing the same song twice and hogging the microphone — are taken seriously in bars, where violence is not uncommon. The perceived aggressive lyrics have also been cited. Regrets? Yeah, they’ve had a few.

 

4) The legendary curse: “Otzi the Iceman” 

The history of the hex: German tourists Helmut and Erika Simon were walking between mountain passes on the border between Austria and Italy in 1991 when they spotted what they thought was the body of a deceased mountaineer. They were off by a few thousand years — the remains were the 5,300-year-old frozen corpse of “Otzi the Iceman,” Europe’s oldest known natural human mummy.

It was initially thought he died of exposure, but X-rays in 2001 found he had an arrowhead lodged in his left shoulder, a wound that would have been fatal even in modern times. Not surprisingly, rumours soon emerged that Otzi was angry about having his 53-century-long sleep disturbed, and a curse would soon follow. Those rumours were fuelled by the strange, often accidental deaths of people who had come into close contact with the frozen corpse, whose remains have provided an unprecedented look at Copper Age Europeans.

The rumours took off when the German tourist who discovered the mummy, Helmut Simon, 67, fell to his death during a freak blizzard while hiking near the same spot where he saw Otzi through the ice.

“Within an hour of Simon’s funeral, the head of the mountain rescue team that was assigned to find him, Dieter Warnecke, 45, died of a heart attack. Then in April, archeologist Konrad Spindler, 55, who first inspected the prehistoric corpse, died of complications from multiple sclerosis,” dw.com reported in 2005. “The head of the forensic team examining Otzi, Rainer Henn, 64, died in a car crash on the way to give a lecture about the iceman. The mountaineer who led Henn to the Iceman’s body, Kurt Fritz, 52, died in an avalanche, the only one of his party to be hit. And the man who filmed Otzi’s removal from his icy mountain grave, celebrated Austrian journalist Rainer Hoelzl, 47, died of a brain tumour.” 

The body of a seventh victim, archeologist Tom Loy, was discovered in his home in 2005 as he was finishing a book about the Iceman.

 

3) The legendary curse: “The Curse of the Billy Goat”

The history of the hex: If your favourite sports team can’t win a championship, the problem isn’t the players or the coaches or a lack of support from the fans. No, the problem is your team has been cursed. At least that was the Chicago Cubs’ story, and they stuck to it through a lot of losing seasons.

The Cubbies’ woes famously began when tavern owner William (Billy Goat) Sianis was stopped at the gate before Game 4 of the 1945 World Series at Wrigley Field with his goat, Murphy, in tow. “Murphy’s stench, rather than the fact he was, well… a goat, seemed to be the determining factor on why the animal wasn’t allowed into the game. The goat had his own ticket, after all,” according to the newspaper USA Today. Sianis famously declared: “You are going to lose this World Series and you are never going to win another World Series again.” Or, depending on which version of the story you hear, he might have proclaimed: “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.”

Whatever Sianis said, the Chicago Cubs dropped Game 4, a defeat that evened the series at 2-2. The Detroit Tigers won the championship in seven games and The Curse of the Billy Goat was born.

Once the Curse of the Bambino — the legend based off the Boston Red Sox trade of slugger Babe Ruth — was lifted when Boston broke its title drought by winning the 2004 World Series, the Billy Goat curse became baseball’s top hex. The legend grew as the Cubs stumbled in their smattering of post-season appearances in the following decades.

The Cubs tried everything imaginable (outside of winning) to rid their franchise of the Billy Goat curse. Prior to his death in 1970, William Sianis tried to lift the curse and Sam Sianis, his nephew, went to Wrigley Field with a goat multiple times, including on Opening Day in 1984 and 1989. At the start of the 2008 playoffs, the Cubs invited Rev. Father James L. Greanias, a Greek Orthodox priest, to Wrigley. Greanias spread the Cubs’ dugout with holy water. Technically, the curse lasted 71 years.

When the Cubs captured the World Series in 2016, they snapped a 108-year title drought, the longest record of sports futility in North America, and ended a curse that got their goat for far too long.

 

2) The legendary curse: The Hope Diamond 

The history of the hex: What we are talking about here is not just the most famous diamond in the world, but the most famous cursed diamond in the world. It has been on display in the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History since 1958 and is the museum’s most popular exhibit.

Getting back to the curse, the legend states it sparkled in the brow of an Indian temple idol, until it was impiously plucked out by a thieving priest, whose punishment was a slow and agonizing death. It was said angry temple priests put a curse on anyone in possession of the gem. Its first recorded owner, French merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, likely purchased the 45-carat blue diamond on a trip to India, but by the 20th century, a myth had sprung up in the U.S. and Europe that Tavernier had stolen the diamond from the statue of a Hindu goddess. For his sacrilege, Tavernier was supposedly mauled to death by dogs.

It didn’t happen. In reality, he sold the gem to King Louis XIV of France in 1669 and retired a wealthy man. “All went well until the diamond fell into the hands of King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, who were beheaded during the French Revolution,” notes livescience.com.

By 1839, the diamond supposedly ended up with Henry Philip Hope, a Dutch collector based in London and the source of the stone’s modern name. “After Lord Francis Hope of England inherited the diamond, he married an American showgirl,” livescience.com notes. “The pair squandered their fortune, sold the diamond and were eventually reduced to poverty. After Evalyn Walsh McLean bought the stone in 1911, her son was killed in a car accident, her daughter committed suicide and her husband left her for another woman (he eventually ended up in an insane asylum).”

It was eventually purchased by gem merchant Harry Winston, who donated it to the Smithsonian. He mailed it inside a box wrapped in brown paper, “but a truck hit the postman who delivered the jewel (he survived). His wife and dog died not long after, however, and his home caught fire.”

It turns out the curse was basically a sensational story created by journalists in the late 1800s to sell newspapers. Surprise, eh?

 

1) The legendary curse: King Tut (or the Curse of the Pharaohs)

The history of the hex: If you have never heard of King Tut’s Curse, chances are you did not waste your youth watching scary movies such as The Mummy (1932) or Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). This is arguably the king of all the mythical curses.

In 1923, a British archeological team opened the tomb of Tutankhamun, or “King Tut,” an Egyptian pharaoh during the 14th century B.C. Historical records reportedly state that the stone guarding Tutankhamun’s tomb warned: “Death Shall Come on Swift Wings to Him Who Disturbs the Peace of the King.” It’s great stuff for Hollywood movies, and anyone looking to capitalize on a curse story. “Two months later, when the team’s sponsor died from a bacterial infection, British newspapers claimed without evidence that he’d died because of King Tut’s curse,” notes history.com. “Whenever subsequent members of the team died, the media dredged up the alleged curse again.”

There’s little doubt rumours of a curse fuelled newspaper sales at the time, but there were some odd deaths. The most prominent death was that of excavation financier Lord Carnarvon, who died just five months after the discovery of the first step leading down to the tomb on Nov. 4, 1922. Carnarvon, already weakened by a car crash, died of an infection that led to pneumonia.

A study reportedly showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years. Indeed, tomb discoverer Howard Carter died of lymphoma in 1939 at the age of 64. Lord Carnarvon’s daughter, among the first to enter the tomb, lived another 57 years and died in 1980. Notes history.com: “King Tut’s curse and other famous ‘mummy’s curses’ were invented by Europeans and Americans while their countries removed priceless artifacts from Egypt.” Of course, we could always blame Abbott and Costello.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca