by Lady Michelle-Jennifer Santos, Chief Visionary Founder & Owner
June 23, 2013 (TSR) – A 4,000-year-old ancient statue, which was an offering to the Egyptian God Osiris – regarded as God of the Dead, has puzzled curators at Manchester Museum in United Kingdom after the relic started to mysteriously spin 360 degrees on its own, in a perfect circle, despite being safely locked in a glass case for decades, Manchester Evening News reported.
The 10-inch tall black relic, which dates back to 1800 BC, found in a mummy’s tomb, was donated to the museum by Annie Barlow, of Bolton, in 1933. The statue has since been 80 years on display at the Manchester Museum.
However, in recent weeks, curators were spooked after they kept finding the statue facing the wrong way inside the case. Only a few staff have access to the case at Manchester Museum.
One of them, Egyptian artefacts curator Campbell Price, 29, was first to notice the statue had moved.
“Most Egyptologists are not superstitious people. I wondered who had changed the object’s position without telling me. But the next time I looked, it was facing in another direction — and a day later had yet another orientation. None of the other objects in the display had moved. It’s bizarre,” he said.
“I thought it was strange because it is in a case and I am the only one who has a key,” said Price.
Experts decided to monitor the room on time-lapse video for a week and were astonished to see it clearly show the statuette slowly spinning 360 degrees – with nobody going near it.
“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.”
The status is seen to remain still at night but slowly rotate round during the day.
According to Dr. Price, this particular statuette is of an official — probably with priestly duties — and is made from serpentine, a hard stone.
It shows a man, standing with his left foot forward wearing a shoulder-length wig and a knee-length kilt.
Hieroglyphs on the back of the figure spell out a prayer for offerings (“bread, beer and beef”) for the spirit of the man.
The reading of his name is unclear – but may be pronounced “Neb-senu”.
Price believes there may be a spiritual explanation to the spinning statue.
“Mourners would lay offerings at its feet. The hieroglyphics on the back ask for ‘bread, beer and beef.”
“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,” Price said.
“The Egyptians would be surprised, however, by a statue moving entirely of its own accord,” he added.
Scientists who explored the Egyptian tombs in the 1920s were popularly believed to be struck by a ‘curse of the Pharaohs’. Legend has it there is a curse of the pharaohs dooming anyone looting relics from within a pyramid tomb.
“The statuette has been on a glass shelf in about the same place in the gallery for decades — and has never moved before. It probably lay buried until it was found by an archaeologist or a local Egyptian before being sold and entering the art market,” Dr. Price noted.
Possible explanations include subtle vibrations from visitors walking past the exhibit or traffic trundling by outside, but these do not explain why the statue has never moved before — or why it moves in an exact circle.
Other experts have a more rational explanation – suggesting that the vibrations caused by the footsteps of passing visitors makes the statuette turn, Daily Mail reported.
TV boffin and physicist Professor Brian Cox who presents programmes such as the Wonders of Life, also favors this explanation. However, Price is not convinced.
“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,” Price said.
“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?” he asked.
Price is urging members of the public to come along and take a look for themselves.
“It would be great if someone could solve the mystery,” he added.
Background of this “Omen”
It is important to note that the Hyksos first appeared in Egypt c.1800 BC, during the eleventh dynasty, and began their climb to power in the thirteenth dynasty, coming out of the second intermediate period in control of Avaris and the Delta.
The origin of the term “Hyksos” derives from the Egyptian expression heka khasewet (“rulers of foreign lands”), used in Egyptian texts such as the Turin King List to describe the rulers of neighbouring lands. This expression begins to appear as early as the late Old Kingdom in Egypt, referring to various Nubian chieftains, and in the Middle Kingdom, referring to the Semitic chieftains of Syria and Canaan.
Most archaeologists describe the Hyksos as a mix of Asiatic peoples, suggested by recorded names such as Khyan and Sakir-Har that resemble Asiatic names, and pottery finds that resemble Palestinian pottery.
It was after about 1800 B.C. that Ancient Egypt fell into disorder. It lasted for two hundred years. The Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt, or Dynasty XIII, lasted from approximately 1802 BC until approximately 1649 BC, i.e. for 153 years.
Manetho‘s account, as recorded by Josephus, describes the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt as an armed invasion by a horde of foreign barbarians who met little resistance, and who subdued the country by military force. He records that the Hyksos burnt their cities, destroyed temples, and led women and children into slavery.
According to a theory, the Egyptian rulers of 13th Dynasty were preoccupied with domestic famine and plague, and they were too weak to stop the new migrants from entering and settling in Egypt. Even before the migration, Amenemhat III carried out extensive building works and mining, and Gae Callender notes that “the large intake of Asiatics, which seems to have occurred partly in order to subsidize the extensive building work, may have encouraged the so-called Hyksos to settle in the Delta, thus leading eventually to the collapse of native Egyptian rule.”
The Greek name “Hyksos” was coined by Manetho to identify the Fifteenth Dynasty of Asiatic rulers of northern Egypt. In Egyptian Hyksos means “ruler(s) of foreign countries”, however, Josephus mistranslated Hyksos as “Shepherd Kings”.
The Hyksos had Canaanite names, as seen in those with names of Semitic deities such as Anath or Ba’al. They introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot.
By the Thirteenth dynasty of Egypt, the “foreign warlords” had taken the name of Pharaoh for themselves, and had begun to fight over it. It is important to note that Egypt only had “kings”, and never used the word “Pharaoh”. (READ: The Hebrew Distortion of History: Ancient Egypt Knew No Pharaohs, but KINGS)
Some argued there was no need to pay tribute, homage or obedience to a weak king, and that began to cause problems.
Josephus himself wished to demonstrate the great antiquity of the Jews, and thus identified the Hyksos with the Hebrews of the Bible.
Does it ring a bell to today’s situation in the Middle East?
This is what I think what the Omen of this moving statue is pointing. It’s amazingly in-tuned.
It appears that the movement is confined to the day when people pass before it. It seems not to move at night. That should indicate something.
I have 3 ivory netsukes in a small display cabinet in my bedroom. One of them always turns a little and I have to periodically put it back to face the front. Our houses are on the ground floor, and cars and pedestrians pass in front of our houses. I believe that the disturbance causes it to move. The others don’t move because they have a flatter bottom.
The statuette does have a flat bottom too, and it is curious that it does a full 360 degrees.