"About 20 B.C. the two statues are linked up with Memnon by Greeks," says Pettorino. "Heron, who knows the Greek mythology well, decides to give voice to Memnon so that he can answer to his mother's caresses. The priests of the temple, fascinated by the prodigy, allow Heron to get ahead with his project. Of course everything is kept secret, because the aim of the experiment is not only scientific but it is also to rouse astonishment by the magic of the 'talking statue.' Once the mechanism is going, the trick works perfectly."

"In many theorems, Heron explains how it is possible to get a sound by pouring water into a vessel," says Pettorino. "In general, if the base is connected with the outer air through a very thin pipe, the inner air is pushed into it abruptly, giving rise to a hissing sound. According to what is at the end of the pipe, a bird will chirp, a dragon will hiss, or a trumpet will play. When the colossus starts speaking, Heron, or one of his followers, is there to place his device on the left knee of the statue, as it is proved by a cavity still visible there."

Pettorino and Giannini speculate that the priests and guardians of the temple of Amenophi III looked after the device for two centuries. "Who else could benefit from the magic phenomenon which gave a supernatural halo both to the statue and to its guardians?" hypothesizes Pettorino. "Greeks, Romans, poets, ambassadors, the emperor Hadrian himself - everybody came to admire that mysterious site. It was a great advantage for the priests, at first only for a question of prestige, but soon for an economic reason, too, if we consider the big tourist flow." Over a hundred inscriptions left on the rock by tourists testify to the large influx of pilgrims.

The researchers believe the priests of the temple, in order to prevent the secret being revealed, may have arranged for Heron and his assistants to vanish, as well as any later unfortunates who discovered the secret behind the voice.

In A.D. 196, the Roman ruler Settimius Severus, while in the process of restoring Egyptian monuments, announced his intention to carefully inspect all of them. In order to hide their fraud, the priests probably destroyed the talking device, thus silencing the colossus for eternity.