Egyptologist suffers mysterious illness while opening ancient tomb

"Whether it was the mummy's curse or not, there was something in that ancient Egyptian tomb that got me," Ramy Romany said after his near-death illness.

Egyptologist and filmmaker Ramy Romany says he suffered from a mysterious illness that left him hallucinating and coughing up blood after opening an ancient Egyptian tomb.

Egyptologist Ramy Romany - (Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK)

On the podcast The Jordan Harbinger Show , Ramy Romany said he became ill after opening a grave for the Discovery Channel show Mummies Unwrapped .

He filmed an episode about a mummy that people believe belongs to a biblical figure.

While filming, he went into a crypt that had not been opened for many years. He unlocked the crypt and the locals stayed away first to make sure there were no snakes or any curses.

Not believing in the curse, he went straight down the stairs to the crypt. The crypt was long and dusty. He continued down, trying to breathe evenly.

And that day, while returning to the capital Cairo (Egypt), he began to feel unwell.

"The next morning I had a very high fever. I had never had a fever that high. My temperature was 42°C and I started coughing up blood. The doctor examined me and I was almost dead."

Romany added that he had been hallucinating. Doctors prescribed antibiotics. They said the cause could have been bats, snakes or dust from inside the Egyptian tomb.

According to Mr Romany, the tomb has not been opened for about 600 years . He does not believe in the so-called "curse" of the Pharaohs, but says there is a "scientific" truth to it. That is, fungal pathogens have been found inside ancient tombs.

There was a previous study that looked at people who had opened Egyptian tombs, and they found no suspicious mortality rates. Regarding the death of British archaeologist George Carnarvon (1866-1923), who was said to be a victim of the "curse" , it was suggested that he was infected with the fungus Aspergillus when he opened the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.