CURSED OR MISUNDERSTOOD? THE NEB-SENU STATUE

MUSEUM MYSTERIES

BY: MADELINE SMOLARZ

One of the most recent “museum mysteries” that captured the attention of the public and quickly became a favourite of mine emerged roughly a year ago from within the Manchester Museum located in bustling Manchester, England.

This photo of the Manchester Museum was chosen solely because it exudes an air of mystery. Source.

Early in 2013, museum staff began to notice that a certain 4,000 year-old statue in one of the display cases of their Egyptian collection was moving – very slowly and undetectable to the gaze of a regular viewer simply standing and watching for a few minutes – but moving nonetheless. Within a couple days of adjusting the statue, known as Neb-Senu, employees would find it with its back facing visitors or sitting at an odd angle in comparison to its former position. The artefact was evidently rotating on its own axis amongst its stationary peers in the museum.

One of the many positions that Manchester Museum staff found Neb-Senu in. Source.

Neb-Senu is a relatively small, anthropomorphic statue carved from dark stone that was made to be a medium for the soul of an Ancient Egyptian man who died c. 1800 BCE. The press’ discovery of this juicy tidbit led to newspaper stories with headlines containing words like “cursed” and “possessed.”

Close-up of the Neb-Senu statue. Source.

Due to the never-ending curiosity of humans (and probably also the annoyance of constantly having to straighten the rebellious object), it was determined that someone should be enlisted to solve the mystery. The British television show “Mystery Map” brought in several experts and produced a time lapse film of the statue over several days to chart its movement.

When viewing the video below, note which artefact is Neb-Senu (highlighted here). Source. 

Time lapse video of Neb-Senu spinning around in its case. Source.

The most helpful expert turned out to be engineer Steve Gosling, a vibration specialist. He determined that the daytime foot traffic of people both inside and outside of the museum, the flow of vehicular traffic outdoors, the relatively small size of the moving object, and the convex (rounded) base of the statue all in combination produced the rotating movement. The other artefacts all had flat bases, so Neb-Senu was the only one that reacted to the vibrations in its environment during the day when they are at their peak.

Since this discovery, appropriate measures have been taken to stabilize the statue’s base with conservation-grade foam, a nice dovetail with the subject matter of the other Musings column I write, Conservation Tips and Tricks.

For me, this case speaks to the inability of our society’s psyche to cease thinking about Ancient Egypt as shadowy, superstitious, source of the unexplained. Fear not, folks. Just because something cannot be initially explained doesn’t mean you should jump to conclusions. Of course, the sensationalizing of the story died down after the mystery was solved, but the large number of articles that I was able to find on this topic tells me that this story will be sticking around in the public’s mind for a while. I leave you with this adorable parody of the incident from the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture.