The curse cast upon those who disturb an ancient Egyptian mummy may be a legend, but at times it felt very real to Sydney Egyptologist Jana Jones.

In 2001 Dr Jones suggested that the practice of mummifying dead bodies may have started 1500 years earlier than first thought, after she noticed embalming resins in the cloths buried with bodies in ancient graves.

Cloth resins in ancient graves suggest embalming may have started 1500 years earlier. Credit:University of York

But it would take more than a decade for the Macquarie University academic to gather evidence to confirm the theory, her research team plagued by illness, a lack of funds and several dead ends.

''The process wasn’t entirely free from the curse of the mummy,’’ Dr Jones said.