Debunked: Ancient Egyptian Statue Rotating by Itself in Manchester Museum

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

A Manchester Museum getting a lot of publicity for a video of a statue that slowly rotates through the course of the day is on a glass shelf and only moves when people walk nearby. Read on



This raises the obvious suggestion that the rotation is simply due to the vibration. The statue is hard uneven stone, and the glass shelf is very hard and perfectly flat. When two hard substances are in contact with each other, then there's not much friction because there are limited points of contact. I suspect that the base of the statue is uneven, which allows it to tilt and pivot very slightly from the vertical vibration from people walking by. The shelf is very slightly tilted towards the front, so the statue rotates until the center of gravity is at the lowest point, and then it stops.

Firstly the issue of object moving on a glass shelf visitor induced vibration from wooden floors is a known problem in the museum industry, see:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/c...ration-rio.pdf