I Shall Cast the Fear of Myself into Him: Egyptian Statue Moves at British Museum

Darlings, have you seen the ancient Egyptian statue that moves by itself?

This 4,000 year old relic is a 10-inch statuette found in the tomb of Nebsenu as an offering to Osiris, ancient Egyptian god of the dead, to guarantee the owner’s afterlife.  Although the statue has been in the Manchester Museum since 1933, it has recently begun moving slowly by itself during the day, as shown in the above time-lapse film.

NEBSENU STATUE Egyptian Artifact Turns on its own

According to museum curator Campbell Price, “Ancient Egyptians believed that statuettes such as these could act as an alternative home for the spirits of the people they represented, should the body be damaged or destroyed.”

Price notes that the statue moves in a perfect circle, without wobbling off in a particular direction, and always with a different stopping point. Already theories are being bandied about, from changing traffic patterns to the ever-popular ancient Egyptian curse. But everyone knows these ancient Egyptian curses don’t really exist.  Or do they, kittens?

You can find the rest of the details on this curious artifact at Curator Price’s museum blog, Egypt at the Manchester Museum.

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Categories: Oddities

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16 replies

  1. That is wicked cool AND creepy!!

  2. I love it! This makes me smile for some reason! Maybe I am far more deranged than I realized.

  3. We all suspected that the Stargate Program would have this sort of effect on Goa’uld and more accurately Ancient artifacts like that statue. That statue is just some lost and forgotten tech that Daniel Jackson hasn’t cataloged yet. It is either responding to Stargate activation or it was just designed to warn of an approaching Goa’uld armada.

    • Ah yes, here I was so busy concentrating on the “haunted statuette” theory that I completely disregarded the “technology of the ancients” Stargate theory! I guess we should get used to being thralls… 🙂

  4. That is pretty awesome. I love it!

  5. We replaced an old crummy Egyptian statue with one of our special “vintage” vibrators. Let’s see how long it takes the musty archaeologists to figure it out!

  6. Wow! This is pretty amazing no matter why it’s moving around. What’s your theory? It would really be something if we found out that it started moving just as something happened to the body it was buried with.

  7. Weird and creepy. I don’t know if the street’s vibrations or some real paranormal activity is responsible for this. :O

  8. Cool, creepy, all the above, love it! Who knows what happens when we’re not looking.

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