In June 2013, time-lapse photography showed an Egyptian statue which slowly rotated – without any power source – to turn away from onlookers at a museum over an 11-hour period. Now a British engineer claims to have solved the mystery.
Below is the original story as reported on June 24, 2013, followed by the November 2013 update.
Rotating Statue
The 4000-year old Egyptian statue has been held at the Manchester museum for the past 80 years, and for the past several months curators have noticed the relic continues to be found facing 180 degrees away from it’s normal placement, despite being locked in a glass case.
Curators decided to monitor the statue with time lapse video, and it can clearly be seen slowly spinning in its glass case. The story has been heavily reported, with major news outlets such as ABC news showing time lapse video of the statue slowly rotating in place.
Vibration Theory
The most accepted explanation for the statue’s slow movement is that of small vibrations which are caused by foot traffic of visitors. Metabunk (link below) went to great lengths to explain and duplicate the process by which such vibrations could cause this object to rotate in place in this manner.
It has been pointed out that the statue only rotates during the day, which supports the theory that minute vibrations due to visitor traffic could be causing the statue to slowly rotate in place.
Museum Refutes Vibration Theory
A museum employee dismissed the vibration theory, telling ABC News, “I was working in this gallery for around an hour and a half one day. The statuette had moved 45 degrees, and the gallery was empty. Nobody was walking through, so how can that be explained by visitor footfall or vibration?”
Campbell Price, another curator at the museum, pointed out that “it has been on those surfaces since we have had it and it has never moved before.”
Video
Watch the video of the spinning statue below.
November 2013: Case Solved
This case was deemed “solved” by a British engineer who installed an accelerometer. He found that “vibrations from both road traffic and footfall within the museum were the cause.” Because the bulk of the statue’s weight was off-center, it was susceptible to movement from vibrations.
Engineer Steve Gosling told Reuters, “With an object of such hard material on a glass shelf, the level of friction between the two materials is very low. It doesn’t take a lot to make it move.”
Bottom Line
In November 2013, engineer Steve Gosling solved the mystery of the rotating statue, and found that vibrations from traffic and footsteps led to the statue’s movement, due to its off-center weight distribution.
Sources
- Pharaoh’s Curse? Time-Lapse Video Shows Statue Spinning on Its Own (ABC News: June 24, 2013)
- Debunked: Ancient Egyptian Statue Rotating by Itself in Manchester Museum (Metabunk.org: June 23, 2013)
- Solved: the riddle of the rotating Egyptian statue (Reuters/Yahoo News: November 20, 2013)
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