The talking colossus of Memnon drew thousands of pilgrims to Thebes in the early part of the first millennium A.D. But Memnon's voice, believed by the masses to be a divine act, was probably due to the engineering wizardry of an early Greek.

Throughout the world, from Egypt to the Amazon to the Pyrenees, there have been ancient accounts of "talking statues" - usually attributed to natural causes such as temperature or humidity. But the Colossus of Memnon has always been an enigma.

In the fourteenth century B.C., two 65-foot-tall sandstone statues of Pharaoh Amenophi III were built in front of a temple along the bank of the Nile. In 27 B.C., the northern colossus was cracked in two pieces by an earthquake and later restored in 196 A.D. For roughly two centuries, when the sun's rays touched the northern statue at dawn, a sound emitted from it which has alternately been described by ancient historians as a vocal sound, or that of a breaking lyre string.

Massimo Pettorino and Antonella Giannini of the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli, Italy, believe this noise was the work of the brilliant engineer and mathematician Heron of Alexandria, who lived between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. After considering possible sources of the noise, they rejected a natural explanation because the other statue never emitted a noise. While tracking down what kind of artificial device could have been placed in the statue and why, the Italian researchers realized the most likely candidate was a Greek and then stumbled across Heron's work with devices that emit sounds. Heron would have been aware of the Colossi of Memnon, by then already earthquake-damaged.

According to Greek mythology, Aurora (or Dawn) begged Zeus for mercy for her son, Memnon, who was killed in battle. According to legend, Zeus was moved by Aurora's tears: He allowed Memnon to come to life and answer his mother once a day when she caressed him with her rays.