I’m playing through Shadow of the Tomb Raider and these ruins are full of ancient machines and devious traps. Obviously I know it’s fantasy, but is there any actual truth to it? Were there actually tombs filled with mechanical/non mechanical traps? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

I’m playing through Shadow of the Tomb Raider and these ruins are full of ancient machines and devious traps. Obviously I know it’s fantasy, but is there any actual truth to it? Were there actually tombs filled with mechanical/non mechanical traps?

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coinsinmyrocket

Not to discourage any new information or discussion, but here are a couple of 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.?

Ancient ruins with booby traps in them. is that trope based on anything that actually ever existed, or is it totally the invention of 19th/20th century adventure fiction writers?

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?