Ancient Egyptians believed that statues could house the souls of the dead. Some are now suggesting that a statue housed at the Manchester Museum may be serving such a purpose, as it has been recorded moving on its own. This video shows the statue's mysterious rotation inside its locked case.
As physicist Brian Cox notes later in the article, there probably is a mundane explanation for the movement - vibrations from the foot traffic of museum visitors. If you watch the video carefully you can see that when more people are present walking through the room the rate of rotation increases in direct proportion. Toward the end of the video during which fewer people pass its case the statue still turns, but much more slowly.
Why the statue would start turning now, as it has occupied the same shelf for 80 years, is another question altogether. Something as simple as the building slowly settling over those decades might account for a slight shift in the statue's orientation, but perhaps something more mysterious than that is indeed at work.
The 10-inch tall statue of a man named Neb-Senu was originally an offering to the god Osiris and has been in the museum for 80 years. Up until a few weeks ago, the statue had appeared to be stationary. "I noticed one day that it had turned around," curator Campbell Price, 29, told NDTV. "I thought it was strange because it is in a case and I am the only one who has a key."
Price told the Sun this week that "most Egyptologists are not superstitious people," and said when he first noticed the object had moved, his first instinct was to wonder who moved it. “But the next time I looked, it was facing in another direction — and a day later had yet another orientation," he told the Sun this week. Price returned the statue to its original position and set up a time-lapse video, which he says shows the statue moving without the help of humans.
As physicist Brian Cox notes later in the article, there probably is a mundane explanation for the movement - vibrations from the foot traffic of museum visitors. If you watch the video carefully you can see that when more people are present walking through the room the rate of rotation increases in direct proportion. Toward the end of the video during which fewer people pass its case the statue still turns, but much more slowly.
Why the statue would start turning now, as it has occupied the same shelf for 80 years, is another question altogether. Something as simple as the building slowly settling over those decades might account for a slight shift in the statue's orientation, but perhaps something more mysterious than that is indeed at work.
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