The curse of the brutally murdered girl lying in wait under your bed to brutally kill you while you sleep if you do not forward the email to at least 10 people has claimed 0 lives. However, can the curse of an Egyptian pharaoh be true? The Tutankhamun's curse has been said to have claimed 20 lives, while a more recent pharaoh curse, the curse of Neb-Senu, emerged to only inconvenience museum curators as an Egyptian statue slowly spins on the spot by itself.
A 10-inch tall, 4,000-year-old Egyptian statuette baffled the Manchester Museum staff as they constantly find it facing the back of the glass display cabinet despite them always rearranging it to its original angle.
The relic was made by Neb-Senu around 1800B.C as an offering to Osiris, the god of the dead, and donated to the museum in 1933 where it remained immobile until now.
Over a span of a few days, the statuette which is displayed facing out into the museum would gradually rotate to face the rear of its display case, and it has to be manually turned around by hand again only to be found with its back turned toward the museum a few days later. And the whole vicious cycle repeats itself.
The Neb-Senu statuette’s slow rotation has been captured on film by a time-lapse camera, and it distinctively shows that it spins by itself.
Museum Curator, Campbell Price, 29 believes that this is a supernatural phenomenon.
“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,” Price said.
“In Ancient Egypt they believed that if the mummy is destroyed then the statuette can act as an alternative vessel for the spirit,” Price explained. “Maybe that is what is causing the movement.”
TV physicist Professor Brian Cox however has a more scientific theory for the unusual occurrence. Since the statuette only spins during the day and remains motionless throughout the night, Cox reckons that the vibrations caused by footsteps of passing visitors makes the relic rotate in its glass shelf.
“Brian thinks it’s “differential friction” where two surfaces, the stone of the statuette and glass shelf it is on, cause a subtle vibration which is making the statuette turn,” Price remarked. “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? It would be great if someone could solve the mystery.”
Perhaps the statuette prefers to face the back so that it does not have to deal with looking at people’s ugly faces peering in at it. As long as it is not hopping off its glass case and going on a murdering streak à la Chucky, everything is fine and dandy. No harm no foul.
Check out the time-lapse video below to watch the statuette turn on its own.