Walk Like An Egyptian?

Walk Like An Egyptian?

I found this story over at Who Forted, about an Egyptian statue that seems to move on it’s own with quite good video.

Suspiciously good video actually.

 

From The Manchester Evening News

Video: The curse of the spinning statue at Manchester Museum
22 Jun 2013 09:24

The 10-inch tall relic, which dates back to 1800 BC, was found in a mummy’s tomb and has been at the Manchester Museum for 80 years.

An ancient Egyptian statue has spooked museum bosses – after it mysteriously started to spin round in a display case.

The 10-inch tall relic, which dates back to 1800 BC, was found in a mummy’s tomb and has been at the Manchester Museum for 80 years.

But in recent weeks, curators have been left scratching their heads after they kept finding it facing the wrong way. Experts decided to monitor the room on time-lapse video and were astonished to see it clearly show the statuette spinning 180 degrees – with nobody going near it.

The statue of a man named Neb-Senu is seen to remain still at night but slowly rotate round during the day.

Now scientists are trying to explain the phenomenon, with TV boffin Brian Cox among the experts being consulted.
Egyptologist Mr Price, 29, said: “I noticed one day that it had turned around. I thought it was strange because it is in a case and I am the only one who has a key.

“I put it back but then the next day it had moved again. We set up a time-lapse video and, although the naked eye can’t see it, you can clearly see it rotate on the film. The statuette is something that used to go in the tomb along with the mummy.

“Mourners would lay offerings at its feet. The hieroglyphics on the back ask for ‘bread, beer and beef’.

“In Ancient Egypt they believed that if the mummy is destroyed then the statuette can act as an alternative vessel for the spirit. Maybe that is what is causing the movement.”

Other experts have a more rational explanation – suggesting that the vibrations caused by the footsteps of passing visitors makes the statuette turn.

That’s the theory favoured by Professor Cox – but Campbell said he was not convinced.

“Brian thinks it’s differential friction,” he said. “Where two surfaces, the serpentine stone of the statuette and glass shelf it is on, cause a subtle vibration which is making the statuette turn.

“But it has been on those surfaces since we have had it and it has never moved before. And why would it go around in a perfect circle?”

Vibration? Possibly, but why then do the other statues not rotate in the same manner? Or show any motion at all?
Why does the one that does move stop when it has turned roughly 180 degrees?
Why does it only move during the day? Some have suggested ground vibration caused by subway trains, but those run all night. Others have suggested vibration in the floor caused by foot traffic, but that does not fully explain why it moves before any foot traffic is in evidence in the video.

This is a time lapse sequence which means while we see video, what is actually happening is a series of still pictures taken at a set and predictable interval leaving it more than possible (and certainly likely) for a human agent to be moving the statue between shots.

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Henry Paterson
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