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TVgeek Great Old One Joined: 15 May 2002 Total posts: 804 Location: Twin Cities, USA Gender: Male |
 Posted: 18-12-2003 20:47 Post subject: Egyptian Relics Moving By Themselves In Museums |
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http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=693418
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Spooky mystery at Bergen Museum
Ancient Egyptian shabti - funerary figures that represent servants in the afterlife - are causing unease for those working at Bergen Museum. Professor Henrik von Achen says colleagues don't like working there at night, and the figures appear to be moving in their glass cases, newspaper Bergens Tidende reports.
BT reporters toured the museum one dark evening and found the Egyptian exhibit disguised a few creepy tales.
"They have behaved strangely since we took them up out of the cellar in 2001," said museum guard Richard Saure. He was the first to notice that small stone figurines, whose job was to work for the dead, were not like other relics.
"They were neatly packed in a case when we brought them up. When we came to work the day after, they were lying all over the place, except for two - two false shabtis," Saure said.
"The exhibition opened in May 2001. Since then these small figurines have moved. Some of them have turned 90 degrees. They stand in glass cases that are sealed and locked but you can see it in the trails in the dust," Saure said.
"I'm a skeptic, but I have to believe what I see. I don't understand this. If it is because of vibrations in the floor, like some claim, why don't other objects move?" the guard wondered.
Professor von Achen has nothing to add to dampen the mystery.
"Someone has made them and laid them in a grave. Now they are out of the grave's darkness. What do they bring? If we ask, maybe they answer, that is the magic of the museum," von Achen said.
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Cool! 
TVgeek |
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| Imperial_Call Joined: 22 Sep 2002 Total posts: 2327 |
| Posted: 18-12-2003 20:57 Post subject: |
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Aren't i always saying there's no such thing as an inanimate object?!?! Well maybe not out loud, but I do say it quite often. Once.
didn't a similar thing happen with those Chinese Terracotta soldier statues? |
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| TVgeek Great Old One Joined: 15 May 2002 Total posts: 804 Location: Twin Cities, USA Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-12-2003 01:56 Post subject: |
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| LobeliaOverhill wrote: |
didn't a similar thing happen with those Chinese Terracotta soldier statues? |
Geez, I just recently saw the German silent film "The Golem"...
what a creepy idea! A whole army of them! *shiver*
TVgeek |
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| oll_lewis mi mou tous kiklous taratte
sea below Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Total posts: 3071 Location: Woolfardisworthy Age: 33 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-12-2003 02:38 Post subject: |
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This reminds me of tales of waxworks being animated by some unknown force, I remember seeing, on fortean TV ( a british TV program on the paranormal), about the hair of Adolf Hitler's waxwork at the London Madame Tussauds growing so frequently that it would sometimes require hair cuts:
(this is the only news story I can find with even the slightest reference to it (it's the bit in bold))
| Quote: | Wax Hitler back in the open
A waxwork of Adolf Hitler has been brought out from behind a glass case to face the public for the first time in 60 years.
The Madame Tussaud's model was put behind glass in 1942 to protect it from attacks from members of the public.
The waxwork has been reinstated in the Grand Hall next to a model of Winston Churchill at the London tourist attraction.
The decision was taken to put it back in the open, despite visitors to the museum still regularly spitting at it.
The model was first placed in the Grand Hall in 1933 when Hitler became the German head of state.
It became a target for hate attacks ranging from spitting, egg-throwing and physical damage.
On one occasion it was daubed with paint and a label was hung around its neck, proclaiming Hitler a mass murderer.
It was put behind glass after workers found that someone had stabbed it with pins, leaving a series of pin-marks around its heart.
A spokeswoman for Madame Tussaud's said no other waxwork had ever attracted the level of hatred and abuse the Hitler model had endured.
Diane Moon added: "Someone tried to push over Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War and there was an outcry when he was first unveiled, but no other waxwork has been attacked like Hitler.
"We constantly had to wipe spit off the front of the glass case."
The model was put in the Grand Hall on Wednesday and survived its first day intact, but faces the half-term holiday next week.
Strangely, the waxwork was one of the few figures which survived the German bombings in the Blitz.
In 1996 a worker reported that its hair appeared to be growing.
Emotional attraction
Ms Moon said the decision to move the waxwork next to the model of Churchill was part of a package of planned improvements.
"Madame Tussaud's is about much more than the people featured in the attraction, it's about the emotions that those people provoke," she said.
"The way people have reacted to Hitler in the past is an extreme example of that.
"At the time guests' passions were so inflamed that the damage inflicted made it impractical for us to leave the figure out in the open.
"Now it's time to remove the glass and place Hitler back in context - going head-to-head with the leader who stood fast against him against all the odds, Winston Churchill."
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Sourse: BBC news feb 07 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1806104.stm
Last edited by oll_lewis on 19-12-2003 02:41; edited 1 time in total |
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| McAvennie_ OBE Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Total posts: 2678 Location: Paris, France Age: 34 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-12-2003 04:02 Post subject: |
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Waxwork's are scary. Some of the older ones in MTSD's are a bit lame but the newer ones are uncanny. The idea of the olden day people ones coming to life creeps me out.
The wax-faced Sadako thing in the well at the end of Ring 2 is also pretty freaky.
Wax work of a clown playing a ventriliquists dummy which is holding a bag of spiders. Worst image ever! |
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| Anonymous |
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| Kondoru Unfeathered Biped Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Total posts: 5788 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-12-2003 21:39 Post subject: |
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Dust, in the cases? Seems pretty lax to me.
Perhaps the cases are acting as some sort of battery, -when the static charge gets too high, items will move around.
My guess is that some crooked member of staff is moving them, frighten off the night security in preperation for a heist. When museums get burgled, its often staff behind it.
(goes back to her moibus Scooby Doo...) |
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| TVgeek Great Old One Joined: 15 May 2002 Total posts: 804 Location: Twin Cities, USA Gender: Male |
| Posted: 20-12-2003 00:52 Post subject: |
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I was wondering about something
magnetic in the cases, too...
even a small force could make
things move over time.
As for the dust in the cases -- I assumed they
were displayed in sand of some kind. Aren't
displays sealed against dust infiltration? (As well
as infrared, humidity, etc...)
If it is indeed a sand-type base, vibrations would
also create patterns in the sand... that would really
freak out the staff!
TVgeek |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 20-12-2003 01:06 Post subject: |
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| Ooh, I think that's where a friend of mine works. I'll ask him. |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 24-01-2004 23:04 Post subject: |
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Got my friend's reply: | Quote: | Good to here from you no matter what the motive, funny that you mention Bergen Museum cause I've just finished a job for them, but I heard no mention of 'mummy movements'.
I'm not surprised if there are dust trails somewhere the old building is a rambling establishment, but not around the Egyptian exhibit, that's fairly new 2 or 3 years old, mind you I didn't do the white glove finger test.
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So there.  |
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| caroleaswas Diva Mentalis Joined: 01 Aug 2001 Total posts: 4607 Age: 8 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 25-01-2004 00:15 Post subject: |
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| McAvennie wrote: |
Wax work of a clown playing a ventriliquists dummy which is holding a bag of spiders. Worst image ever! |
Substitute butterflies for spiders and I'm with you there, McAvennie! 
I always thing the Ancient Egyptians knew a lot more about certain matters than we credit them with and would like to think this is the case here with these ushabtis. However, the Fortean side of me insists there must be a rational explanation.
Could the movement be caused by vibration (due to traffic for example)?
Carole |
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| intaglioreally Well what am I now? Joined: 14 Oct 2001 Total posts: 2641 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 25-01-2004 00:31 Post subject: |
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| The Warders at the British Museum didn't like the Egyptian Galleries either |
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| caroleaswas Diva Mentalis Joined: 01 Aug 2001 Total posts: 4607 Age: 8 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 25-01-2004 00:34 Post subject: |
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Wasn't there a mummy of an Egyptian priestess which caused them particular trouble?
Carole |
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| intaglioreally Well what am I now? Joined: 14 Oct 2001 Total posts: 2641 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 25-01-2004 01:09 Post subject: |
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| Ginger; who was, IIRC, eventually found to be a woman |
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| caroleaswas Diva Mentalis Joined: 01 Aug 2001 Total posts: 4607 Age: 8 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 25-01-2004 01:23 Post subject: |
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'Ginger' was a predynastic mummy, caused by burial in the dry desert sand, Intaglio. The one I'm thinking of came from dynastic times and some of the museum keepers were pretty spooked out by her. I'll see if I can find out more.
Carole |
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