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Posted: 25-01-2004 01:25 Post subject:

'Ginger' was a predynastic mummy, mummified 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

Posted: 25-01-2004 11:13 Post subject:

What I dont get is why security staff dont like these things...they KNEW there were suspicious exibits in the museums before they took the job on. They are PAID to watch out for odd goings on. They shouldnt be spooked by something as UNTHREATENING as moving ushabtis....(lets face it, ushabtis are `meant` to move, why fuss when one does?)

When has a member of staff been ever harmed by an exibit?

If I was on a museum commitee, I sure would make sure that any security staff employed were unflappable.

(Having said all that, I would take good care to employ staff who `do` believe in the supernatural...Its often the skeptics who get scared `should` something odd really happen....)

Posted: 26-01-2004 01:00 Post subject:

Posted: 29-01-2004 17:27 Post subject:

Hmm. This reminds me of some of the things that happened in the Egyptological collection in my university (first held in my old academic department; now held at Swansea Egypt Centre, sixth biggest collection in the country Smile

).

The public museum was only opened about six years ago - I worked there on and off for the first four years, in fact, and was one of the original group who worked there for the six months before it opened. I heard some interesting stories. One of them - small world, this - also involved a mate of mine who was otherwise completely unconnected with the uni or the Classics dept where the collection were originally held. Any, three stories, corroborated by a number of witnesses known to me.

1. Moving Body Parts
For the twenty-five years or so before the museum was funded and opened, the collection was under the care of an elderly lady who was a Venerable Egyptologist. Anyway, according to my old Academic Supervisor (I was in university so long, he's now a drinking mate), in the late 70s and early 80s she kept many of the objects in cupboards in the department, and because room was scarce, at least one object category was kept in a cabinet in the Departmental corridor.

Anyway, either because she was from an age where Students Behaved Themselves or because she was really absent-minded, she often didn't bother to lock the cabinets.

Now while the collection includes a sarcophagus, and two complete mummified babies (one with wrappings, one without, which is a truly horrid object), what it doesn't have is a full adult mummy. However, it does have several arms, legs, and a head. These were kept in one of the easily accessible corridors.

Now this is entirely explicable, but would you be surprised to know that several of the arms, hands and feet went *ahem* walkablout? They were recovered, but they turned up in the oddest places. In lecturers' desks. Sitting on top of tables in lecture rooms. You get the idea.

Does that count as Fortean? Probably not. But this is:

2. Mystery Arm
This story was corroborated both by the staff at the museum, who have a documentary record of this, and by my friend (now a bus driver who has been given the sobriquet "Speedy" by his colleagues Very Happy

). It appeared over the space of a week in the Swansea local paper, the South Wales Evening Post. I've seen documents in the museum, and some of the press cuttings. I've also held the object in question.

So, back in about 92 or 93, Speedy, having graduated and entered the realm of the unemployed, had been growing vegetables in the back garden of his rented house. Anyway, one summer day he's digging the back garden, and he finds something in a carrier bag. Something squishy.

He opens it, and inside is a human arm!

After wetting himself, he calls the police who tell him Not. To. Go. Anywhere. He calls the Job Centre.

"I can't sign on today," he says. "I've found human remains in the garden and the police won't let me come and sign on."

"Yeah, right," they say. Speedy later learns that his benefit would have been cut if he hadn't been on the front of the evening paper that day.

Anyway, the police, not entirely satisfied of his innocence, take the arm away and examine it; the first doctor who looks at it says it's about, oh, three weeks dead. Now Speeds has got a rather Dodgy Bloke living in his house and it transpires that no one's seen his girlfriend for months. Quicker than you can say "It wasn't me, Guv" they've swooped in and arrested him.

And then Dodgy Bloke's now ex-girlfriend turns up, alive and well and living in England somewhere. So, um, there's no one missing.

So who's this then? They get the forensics boys on it, who discover resin and other odd things in the arm, at which point they realise that the arm is in fact from a three thousand year old mummified Egyptian; it looked like it was three weeks dead because it had absorbed moisture from the surrounding earth where it had been buried.

But where has it come from?

They pull in Dodgy Bloke again, and he says that he found it "lying on the beach in Swansea bay", took it home, realised that he had no idea what to do with it, and buried it in the back garden. Since Dodgy Bloke has now confessed that he's buried the arm, Speeds is now cleared of all suspicion and allowed to sign on. Which is a relief.

The police don't believe a word of Dodgy Bloke's story, so they ring up Venerable Egyptologist, who, notwithstanding small lapses of memory involving cupboards, is remarkably anal about cataloguing stuff, and is able to say that it's not one of hers.

And this is the weird part - it doesn't belong to any other Egyptological collection in the country. No one ever finds out where it came from, so it ends up in the Swansea collection after all, where it is today.

3. Cursed!
This is actually a non-story. About three or four years back, a local newspaper reporter asked about rumours he'd heard that the centre was cursed. The assistant curator, bless her, had had it up to here with an unfeasibly large number of people asking that day about aliens and Atlanteans and replied with bitter, biting sarcasm, which the newspaper then printed word for word. On the front page. As an affirmation.

Bastards.

It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the story hadn't appeared in the Guardian the following Wednesday. Oops.

Anyway, just to say: Swansea Egypt Centre is Not cursed, and while there have been weird occurrences, there are no supernatural ones, notwithstanding the store room where the body parts and the baby are kept being really, really creepy.

I thank you.

Posted: 23-06-2013 02:24 Post subject: Moving Egyptian Statue

http://inserbia.info/news/2013/06/museum-mystery-4000-year-old-egyptian-statue-turns-around-by-itself-video/

Sutehk the Destroyer brings the gift of death!

Posted: 23-06-2013 05:23 Post subject:

Interesting but unlikely to be surpernatural.

It only moves when the lights are out. While it could be photo-sensitive in some way, one is more tempted to conside expansion and contraction due to the heat of lights. If the statue is not of uniform composition (the artists employed mixed-material) - as is distinctly possible - it could expand and contract at different points causing a rotation - but surely no curator in their right mind would have ancient exhibits in highly variable environment? It also begins movement very quickly after the lights come on (although a good amount of the lighting from that cabinet seems like it's natural from a window out of shot, which would cast doubt on the idea of it heating up (this is April in the UK! Surise times also seem to match: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=302&month=4&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-12&day=1). For that reason, I'm inclinced to believe we have vibration from lighting or air-conditioning systems that are only turned on during opening hours - perhaps on a timer. Even subsound from a fan could very easily turn the statue, and as a standing piece, it would have a higher center of gravity than the stockier surrounding pieces that remain stationery. Given the smooth movement, I'd postulate a constant sound as opposed to traffic (there is a major road nearby) or the variable noise of visitors.

That aside, I'm not particularly concerned with the 'exactly 180 degrees' claim. Given that nobody is likely to have precisely measured its initial position, we certainly can't be sure about how 'exactly' it has turned. Also, any inconsistency in the shape of the base could easily allow of movement in only one direction and impede movement beyond a certain point.

The obvious thing to do would be to replace the statue and measure any change in position precisely. If the phenomenon is repeated, it ought then be placed it in another spot entirely to gauge whether the movement is due to environmental factors.

Nobody will do this as the museum will lose the good publicity. Wink

Posted: 23-06-2013 11:11 Post subject:

I'm wondering if there is building work going on in the vicinity. I think the Museum is still in buildings on Oxford Road. Perhaps a visit is called for - it's years since I paid my respects to the collection. Smile

Posted: 23-06-2013 11:54 Post subject:

I'll see you over there then. Wink

Posted: 23-06-2013 16:15 Post subject:

Posted: 23-06-2013 16:50 Post subject:

My first thought was that it is due to the vibration of the visitors feet as the walk about as the movement only happens when the light are on during opening hours. I'm guessing that the bottom isn't completely flat or some such thing.

Posted: 24-06-2013 09:06 Post subject:

Mystery as museum statue starts turning in display case
An Eygptian statuette that mysteriously turns itself round inside its display case has left experts baffled at the Manchester Museum.
[video]
3:52PM BST 23 Jun 2013

Even eminent television physicist Professor Brian Cox has weighed in on the mystery of Manchester Museum's moving statuette, which dates back to 1800 BC.
The 10-inch tall statue of Neb Sanu was discovered in a mummy’s tomb and has been with the Museum for eighty years, but has only recently been noticed moving.

Prof Cox, who teaches physics at the city's university, claims the movement is due to the "differential friction".

However, Manchester Museum's resident Egyptologist Campbell Price suggested something more sinister, an Egyptian curse.
"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," he explained in an interview with the Manchester Evening News.

“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.
“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.”. Shocked

He went on the cast doubt on Prof Cox's explanation: “Brian thinks it’s differential friction, 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?”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/10137556/Mystery-as-museum-statue-starts-turning-in-display-case.html

Posted: 24-06-2013 15:54 Post subject: Manchester's Moving Egyptian Statue

Ancient artifact has begun to go walkabout!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23029507

Posted: 24-06-2013 16:01 Post subject:

You are late to the party. Hurry inside before the vol-au-vents all go.

Edit: threads merged; link removed.

Posted: 24-06-2013 16:05 Post subject:

Indeed, I've merged the two threads into one.

P_M

It is an odd video.

Posted: 26-06-2013 09:59 Post subject:

On the trail of Manchester Museum's moving Egyptian mummy
An ancient statue has worked wonders for Manchester Museum
By Neil Tweedie
6:55AM BST 26 Jun 2013

Little is known of Neb-Senu, a name equivalent to John Smith in ancient Egypt. He was a civil servant, probably, and a senior one; a man of means, given the quality of the statue that was made to act as a lifeboat for his soul, should his mummified body ever be destroyed. Old Neb died in about 1800 BC, and that really should have been that – just another bit of trade for Osiris, god of the afterlife. But now, 3,800 years later, he’s back, and doing wonders for visitor numbers at Manchester Museum. Cool

Neb’s statue, housed at the institution for 80 years, has suddenly started to rotate – anti-clockwise, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. One day, his face is turned towards those peering into the glass case that houses him; the next, his back is turned.

Why the statue rotates is one of those mysteries that allow us to forget the likes of George Osborne for a moment. Lighter statues next to Neb’s don’t move, nor do the Perspex cubes that number each item. The display case is locked, and only two members of staff have a key. Science, in the guise of the ubiquitous Professor Brian Cox, has attempted an explanation, but some prefer an other-worldly cause.

“I don’t believe this is a purely physical thing,” says Anna Garnett, an Egyptologist attached to the museum. “This appears to involve a force beyond the physical. Some will say that the spirit of Neb-Senu has entered the statue, and I for one would not discount that.”

The figurine, just 10 inches tall and carved from serpentine, became a subject of worldwide interest after Campbell Price, curator of the museum’s large collection of Egyptian artefacts, resorted to time-lapse photography to catch the statue as it turned. And so it did. The footage went viral on the internet and telephones at the museum have not stopped ringing since.

“It’s been on the ABC breakfast show in America and we’ve had calls from Germany, Italy, Serbia and Japan,” says Garnett. “I’m off to do CNN now.”

A stream of people is filing past the cabinet when your correspondent arrives.
“My mother saw it on television in Hong Kong and asked me to get a picture,” says Yulan Li, a Chinese student studying in Northampton. “Maybe there is magic here.”

Or maybe the great god HGV, who now and then rumbles down neighbouring Oxford Road. Yet there is no obvious traffic vibration, and no adjacent machinery – an air-con unit, say. “Maybe it’s a magnetic force,” ventures Milia Bane, from Galway.
“It’s a toughie,” says John, her perplexed other half. “Mad that, innit?” offers Nathan Ferguson from Failsworth, Manchester. “Summut mad there.”

Summut mad all right. The statuette was bequeathed in 1933 by one Annie Barlow, a mill owner from Bolton who, like many of her wealthy contemporaries, sponsored archaeological digs. This was the era of great discoveries – only a decade earlier, Howard Carter had unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamun.

“We don’t know anything about the tomb from which the statue came,” says Garnett, “only that it carries Neb-Senu’s name and hieroglyphs offering a standard gift to Osiris of beer, beef and fowl.”

Neb’s job and status can be gauged from his attire, a civil-service-issue kilt. The statuette was re-housed in the cabinet last November, and soon started turning. Prof Cox suggests “differential friction”, but even an O-level physicist knows a force must be exerted to move an object.

“There is a suggestion that the turning is caused by people walking past and causing vibrations, but on one occasion when the chamber was empty, the statue moved 45 degrees in 90 minutes,” says Garnett.

So what’s eating Neb? Has his tomb been destroyed by robber or earthquake, forcing his soul to flee into the figurine? A few feet away lie sarcophagi belonging to two wealthy brothers, Khnum-Nakht and Nekht-Ankh. Maybe, just maybe, Neb doesn’t like his new neighbours. Maybe he was in the equivalent of the Inland Revenue, and they ran ancient Egypt’s answer to Google. Garnett says that she, too, has sensed a tension between the exhibits.

Curse of the Mummy? Or the curse of Eddie Stobart? Watch this space…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/museums/10141238/On-the-trail-of-Manchester-Museums-moving-Egyptian-mummy.html