In 2007, a German handed in a package to Egypt’s embassy in Berlin. It contained a part of carving belonging to the ancient Pharaohs, and he included a note that said his stepfather had suffered a “curse of the Pharaohs” for stealing it.

Apparently the man felt he had to return the carving to make amends for his late stepfather and enable his soul to rest in peace, according to Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities.

The thief had stolen the piece while visiting to Egypt in 2004, but as soon as he returned to Germany he suffered paralysis, nausea, unexplained fevers and finally cancer, before dying recently. This was all detailed in the anonymous note left with the carving.

The Egyptian embassy in Berlin has sent the fragment back to Egypt by diplomatic pouch. It had been handed over to the Supreme Council for Antiquities, where a committee of experts is trying to ascertain its authenticity, the statement said.

The belief in a curse of the Pharoahs has been around for quite a while. The curse is supposed to strike down anyone who disturbs the tombs or mummies of ancient Egypt’s Pharaohs.

When Tutenkhamun’s tomb was opened in 1922, strange things began to happen - including the untimely death of the excavation’s financier Lord Caernarvon.

Meanwhile, a recent television programme exposed pharoah Rameses II as a cocaine user - but just how did a ruler of ancient Egypt get hold of a narcotic which only grows in the Andes of South America? Click here for more details.