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Why a British Museum's Ancient Egyptian Statuette Won't Stay Still

The moving museum relic from 1800 BC confounded museum curators for months, but this time-lapse video solved the mystery.

A time-lapse set up by Manchester Museum curators seems to have debunked a months-old mystery involving an ancient Egyptian statuette that appeared to inexplicably move on its own within its glass case.

Neb-Senu, the statuette in question, which dates back to 1800 BC, had been in the museum's possession for 80 years before museum curator Campbell Price detailed his eerie observations on his blog just months ago.

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Price, the only one with a key to the figure's display case, claimed that he saw the 4,000-year-old figure on multiple occasions rotate 180 degrees, all on its own, while nearby figures remained firmly in place.

To solve the mystery, museum workers set up a camera that for one week snapped a photo every minute of Neb-Senu. As you may have noticed in their video posted above, the time-lapse reveals that the statuette moves only during the day, when crowds are trampling through the museum's Ancient Worlds exhibit.

"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," Price said to the Manchester Evening News.

After viewing the video, physicist Brian Cox and others online deduced that differential or "slip-stick" friction likely explains the supposed supernatural movement, citing vibrations caused by visitors walking through the museum exhibit, coupled with the fact that Neb-Senu is asymmetrically weighted.

See for yourself above; Price seems to not be completely convinced with this explanation, but perhaps that's because it's in his (and the museum's) best interest to keep some of the mystery alive.