Case file · High strangeness
The singing Colossus of Memnon
After an earthquake cracked it, the northern colossus of Amenhotep III at Thebes 'sang' at dawn. The geographer Strabo heard it around 24 BCE and suspected a trick.
24 BCE · 25.72, 32.61 · status: explained
The account
Greeks identified the statue with Memnon greeting his mother Eos, the dawn. Emperor Hadrian visited in 130 CE, and his companion Julia Balbilla carved poems on its legs. The sound stopped after the statue was repaired, traditionally by Septimius Severus around 199.
The sceptical view
The usual explanation is air or moisture in the cracked stone warming and expanding at sunrise.