Real-Life Tomb Traps?
My random curiosity of the day, caused by this weekend’s showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the park: were there ever actually any cool mechanical traps in ancient tombs? Seems I’m not the only one who’s ever wondered that. As usual, The Straight Dope is also on the case. In short, no mechanical traps have ever been discovered, unless you count the water trap in the Money Pit of Oak Island. It’s too bad—I’m sure that the Long Now guys would be all over that.
August 15th, 2006 at 10:50 am
are there really tomb traps?
August 15th, 2006 at 10:51 am
if there are realy tomb traps, what kind of traps do they have?
October 17th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Yes, for Ancient Egyptian tombs there were actual tomb traps, although there were no spiked walls closing shut or anything like that. The point was not to alert anyone it was to kill the intruder. Common traps included the Hidden Hole trap where there was a pit dug and it was covered with a false cover. When the intruder stepped on the false cover the cover collapses and in the tomb raider falls. Falling rocks were also a good way to get rid of unwanted visitors. As you can see, it’s nothing really high-tech XD.
May 28th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Ok this site is ok but jazz it up and tell us more about the traps!!!!!
LOV EM
January 17th, 2008 at 11:40 am
need more info
June 10th, 2009 at 11:22 am
one was to design a passage so that the middle was at a much lower level than the 2 ends. In this part a little chamber was built with baskets of organic matter in it. As the organic matter decomposed it released deadly suffocating gasses that would collect in the lower middle section and kill anyone passing through the passage.