Spectator competition winners: poems to mark the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb

In Competition No. 3277, you were invited to supply a poem to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Fifty years ago, amid a wave of Tut mania, some 1.6 million people queued up to see the boy king at the British Museum. Nick MacKinnon and his mum were among them and he earns a commendation for his account of their outing. In a diverse, clever and technically accomplished entry, Roger Rengold, A.H. Harker, Michael Jameson, Paul A. Freeman, Donald Mack and Robin Hill also shone, but the prizes go to the seven printed below, whose authors snaffle £20 each.

Three thousand years of strangers own his bones
And traffic in the trappings of his reign –
From mummy mask of gold and precious stones
To canes that helped him limp with bent-foot pain.
Though robbed a wee bit in antiquity,
His tomb stayed untouched to a great extent
Till Europe’s Great War was a memory
And foreign scholarship could pitch its tent.
Then doors long sealed were breached, braving a curse.
They found his mummy, coffined in pure gold,
Afflicted by a twisted spine and worse.
He hadn’t lived to be two decades old.
He died so young, endured so weirdly long,
Our fascination feels both right and wrong.
Chris O’Carroll

So, Mr Carter, why disturb my rest?
Three thousand years at peace, before you broke
that sacred seal. I thought you might have guessed
the fury of the Gods that you’d invoke.
I’ve treasures that will help me on my way:
gold artefacts – and games that I can play
while heading for the Afterlife – for, hey!
beneath the mask I’m just a mummied boy.
‘See everywhere the glint of gold,’ you cried,
within the gilded shrine where I’m entombed
to journey with Osiris by my side,
but listen, mate, I’ve news for you – you’re doomed!
   So don’t make plans, but fix yourself a hearse,
   you know you can’t evade the Pharoah’s curse.