When an Egyptian statue started turning slowly of its own free will in the Manchester Museum, there were whispers that it could be an ancient curse.

But an engineer, called in to look at the statue, found that that vibrations from a busy nearby road were causing the 3,800-year-old stone figure to rotate.

The convex base of the figure made it "more susceptible" to spin around than the cabinet's other artefacts.

Dr Campbell Price, curator at Manchester Museum, told BBC Radio 5 live's Drive: "There were several supernatural explanations... but Egyptian stuff attracts that."