Dendera
Did the pharaos
lighten their tombs
with electric lights?
Introduction
On the German discussion board of the AAS a
strange idea was discussed for some time: Did the Pharaos use electric lights in
their tombs during the building phase? There is, so the proponents claim, some
evidence for this.
At first something that is missing: Soot! In none of the
approximately 400 underground grave systems were any soot tracks found, although
the tunnels and chambers were precisely hewn out of the rock and often painted
very artistically. The available lamps for the Egyptians - candles,
torches/flares, oil lamps - inevitably leave soot. So how did the
Egyptians bring light into the affair?
A posslible explanation may come from an artifact which was found a few 100
km further to the east, in today's Iraq: A pot with strange contents. A copper
cylinder, sealed with bitumen into the neck of the pot, containing a corroded
iron rod right in the middle of the cylinder. Right on from the beginning in
1936 the chief excavator was certain: This is a galvanic device, a battery.
Indeed reconstruction attempts showed that one could produce electricity with
it.
The last piece of evidence is however the relief of a strange
thing, which can be found in an underground cavern below the Hathor-temple in
Dendera, Egypt. A few pictures of bulb-like devices, into which two small arms
reach before its thick, rounded end. These arms are supported by a column which
looks much like a modern high voltage insulator. At the thin end however runs
something like a cable into the glass bulb. From this striking out and almost
reaching the arms on the other side a snake can be seen, hanging in the air. The
whole arrangement has a striking resemblance to an electric lamp.
Is this the proof? Did the Egyptians know about electric
lights? If yes, from where did they learn the principle? Did they invent it
themselves, or were they taught? By whom?
On the following pages you find results of my research into this topic. They
are, like so often on these pages, sobering. Rainer Lorenz, well known to the
visitors of the AAS-board, helped me with cultural aspects, translations from
hieroglyphics and some of the pictures.
