No. But the rumor has a long and strange history.
The legend centers on an artifact known as the “Unlucky Mummy” — a small painted wooden coffin lid of an Egyptian priestess, housed in the British Museum. By the late 19th century, the museum had received reports of its supernatural influence. Staff allegedly moved it between rooms because it made people uneasy. Then the stories grew.
Supposedly, a wealthy American bought the artifact and tried to ship it to New York. The ship carrying it sank. The mummy was rescued and placed on a second ship. That one sank too. The third attempt was the Titanic. The mummy, locked in the cargo hold, went down with the ship on April 15, 1912. Survivors, the story goes, reported seeing a mysterious Egyptian figure in the smoke.
None of this happened. The British Museum has never sold or loaned the artifact. It never left London. It is still there today. The Titanic’s cargo manifest lists no mummy, no Egyptian artifacts of any significant kind, and certainly no cursed coffin lid. The museum itself has publicly debunked the myth multiple times.
So where did the story come from? A combination of Victorian Egyptomania, the early 20th-century love of spiritualism, and a need to explain an inexplicable disaster. The Titanic was too senseless for a simple explanation. A curse, at least, gave it a story.
The mummy never sailed. But the legend did — and it is still sailing today.