Mike A. asks: I was recently playing the game Tomb Raider & I got to thinking about the trope of the booby trapped or puzzle in an ancient ruin. We see it in comics, movies like Indiana Jones, & games. Is this pure fantasy or were there ever there traps, puzzles, or just intricate mechanical mechanisms from the ancient world in these tombs?
The all-powerful pharaohs of ancient Egypt were frequently buried alongside a literal wealth of fabulous treasure- treasure that, as you can probably imagine, the pharaohs were very keen to protect. So did they actually have significant preventative measures in place to stop anyone from stealing their stuff after they’d gone a little moldy? Well, yes and no, but when it comes to the idea of elaborate booby traps or puzzles as depicted by Hollywood and in games, definitively no.
To begin with, it’s important to understand that generally the pharaoh’s own subjects and in some cases, their direct successors, were the ones stealing their afterlife retirement plan. You see, a pharaoh’s power was more or less absolute and they could do pretty much anything they pleased. As a result, many pharaohs would have the tombs of their ancestors looted, in some cases even reusing the items for their own burial. There are even stories of pharaohs unceremoniously having the mummy of their predecessor dumped out of their sarcophagus so that even that container could be reused.
