In movies like Indiana Jones there are always "ancient" tombs with preposterously advanced/complex traps. Which real life ancient tomb had the most mechanically/technologically advanced traps?

by cantgetno197

The opening tomb in Raiders had: light sensors, complicated gear systems, pressure triggers arrows, etc.

Sits_and_Fits

Not to discourage any new information or discussion, but here are a couple previous threads that relate to your question.

Is there any history basis for the traps in tombs you see in Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, etc.?

So, you know in movies like Indiana jones where there are all these temples with death traps in them, is there any historical evidence for these 'ancient death traps'?

Is there any historical precedent for a pre-modern culture constructing elaborate mechanical traps (as seen in many films such as "Goonies" or in various "Indiana Jones" films) that are disarmable by an artifact or by a sequence of actions? Where does this common film trope come from?

Here's one of the top answers by /u/Cenodoxus, pretty much poo-pooing the concept of advanced, complicated traps in favor of basic things like false passages and trap doors.

Egypt: This is from a book on Egyptology that I read a very long time ago, and I'm hoping that one of our experts steps in, but some Egyptian tombs did in fact contain dummy passages, drop traps, and false walls intended to deter thieves. (NB: False walls weren't intended to serve the same purpose as false doors, which had a spiritual purpose that anyone with a passing familiarity of Egyptian eschatology would have known about.) Failing that, the tombs of people from wealthy families sometimes had armed guards, although naturally this was only so long as the family could continue to pay for them. But memories fade over time, and IIRC most successful tomb robberies were committed against people who had died outside of living memory. One of the working theories in Egyptology is that robberies committed within a few years after the actual burial might have been managed with assistance from the tomb's architects and builders, who would certainly have known how to circumvent the thickest walls and doors (and may even have built a not-so-obvious passage for easier access).

However, stuff like Indiana Jones would be a stretch. It's very unlikely that elaborate trap mechanisms could survive hundreds, much less thousands, of years waiting for the first unwary archaeologist to happen across them, and then there's the question of who would reset or rebait a trap after it had been triggered. The hail of poison darts that greets Indiana in Raiders of the Lost Ark would long since have rotted away unless someone were replacing them constantly, although it's far more likely that the temple complex -- most of which appears to be underground -- would have been rendered impassable by tree roots, if not collapsed outright.

China: The closest I've seen any archaeological dig come to genuine "This place is legitimately dangerous thousands of years later" territory is the tomb of Qin Shi Huang. You may know his tomb better as the site with the thousands of terracotta warriors, but an old legend is that his tomb was surrounded by a moat of liquid mercury in a nod to the ancient belief that mercury could bestow immortality. Ironically, the constant ingestion of mercury due to this belief is how Qin may have died, but soil samples taken from portions of the tomb (not all of it has been excavated -- actually, most of it probably hasn't been) show extremely elevated mercury levels.

OnmyojiOmn

Here's a somewhat related question I asked in /r/askscience.