Image: Campbell Price
This 4,000-year-old Egyptian relic has got the moves. Curators of the Manchester Museum were surprised to discover that the statue of Neb-Senu, originally an offering to Osiris, the god of the dead and ruler of the underworld, has moved on its own.
Museum curator Campbell Price wrote in the Manchester Museum's blog a few months ago:
Most Egyptologists are not superstitious people. When I first noticed that one of our Middle Kingdom statuettes (Acc. no. 9325) had been turned around 180 degrees to face the back of its case in our new Ancient Worlds galleries, I wondered who had changed the object’s position this without telling me. The Egyptians themselves would have appreciated the concern to make visible for passers-by the text on its back pillar – a prayer for offerings for the deceased. Yet the next time I looked into the case, the statue was facing in another direction – and a day later had yet another orientation. None of the other objects in the display had moved. The case was locked. And I have the only key.
Was it a case of Night at the Museum, where museum relics come to life at night? The curators set up a camera to monitor the statuette and captured the mystery in action:
Price told the Manchester Evening News:
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.”
Physicist Brian Cox of BBC's Wonders of Life suggested that the relic's strange movement is due to "differential friction" between the glass surface and the bottom of the statuette and the vibrations due to the footsteps of passing visitors make the relic move.
But not everybody's buying that explanation, including the Price, who told the Independent "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?"
What do you think, Neatoramanauts? What message do you think the strange rotating statue is trying to tell us?
Comments (14)
At $3 million, it's even possible that the cost might be recouped by digitising and selling rare tracks that are out of copyright.
We need to visit this guy!!! What's his address? What's his phone number? How do we contact this fine gentleman?? Please respond!
I also wonder why such institutions like museums and most notably the Library of Congress hasn't expressed any interest in the collection?
This is probably the same reason why old film is degrading, and animals are going extinct. You don't realize its value until it's gone.
So that rare ROLLING STONES record he showed is American? He has to focus on something, but don't assume that's ALL he has.
what is with the human need of collection?
The reason I thought he only has American stuff is cuz it says on his website under "Whats in the collection " that "Every genre of American music is represented"
Ya know - so I thought thats why he only has American music - cuz thats what it says!
Tsk...
:-)
The *only* thing he's got going for him is the fact that he conveniently has every crappy Anne Murray, Firestone Christmas, Carpenters, Saturday Night Fever (and at least 20-50 copies of each of those) all in one location.
I used to travel from NYC to Pittsburgh when he was still an operating store and he'd try to sell a five dollar Beatles record for 50 based upon its "cultural importance."
That Rolling Stones record is nowhere near as rare as he wants it to be -- if I can find the completed Ebay auctions, it actually sells for about 75% of that...
Okay, negative ninny-ing over.
I'm finding with my art that people who want content, want content they want, not just a huge amount. Size perhaps doesn't matter here.
Peace.