Ancient Technology, Part 2: The Dendera Light Bulb

No soot on the walls. It always happens to me this time of year. Tonight's low temperature where I live in SC is predicted to be 25° F., not including the wind chill that's supposed to be in effect. I mean, sure, there are holidays around every corner, hot cider, Charlie Brown specials and pleasant visits from family and friends. But what should be an otherwise enjoyable time of year is often quite uninspiring through the hassle of always trying to dress warm enough, always waiting for the car to heat up, not wanting to get out of bed until you can feel your toes and, of course, always trying to keep wood burning in the fireplace.

Being from south Florida, I didn't grow up always preparing for weather nor was I taught how to use a fireplace. That's probably why, when I spent my first winter here in Columbia, I created a disaster by trying to light the one in my apartment. From camping as a child I had learned how to build a strong fire, but I didn't know the anatomy of a fireplace. See, there's this little thing called a damper, a valve that closes the flue when the fireplace is not in use. I didn't know it was there so I didn't know I was supposed to open it before lighting the fire. Needless to say, as soon as my apartment began filling up with smoke I knew something wasn't right and was forced to extinguish the fire I made. And, even though it was only lit for a matter of seconds, it took me nearly an hour to air out the smoke that had intruded my living space. Unfortunately, though, even when all the smoke was gone there remained a thin film of dirty, black soot on my walls, doors, appliances, and practically everything I owned. The mess that took a minute to make took me and my wife days to completely wipe clean.

It would be easy to get mad at the fire itself, but this was human error. This was my error. The fire itself didn't do anything wrong. Maybe if I'd grown up with more experience around fires I would have known that the fire was behaving just as fire always has and always will behave. There is proof of this all around the world where primitive man lit torches to illuminate their inhabited caves and crypts. Usually, the longer a family or tribe dwelt in that cave, the longer they lit their torches to enable themselves to see, the thicker the layer of soot is that remains on the walls today. The soot left behind on the walls is data that, when analyzed, modern archaeologists can use to determine when a tribe lived there and how long they lived in that particular area.

Enter Egypt into the equation. Egypt is full of ancient caves, crypts, tunnels and temples. Hieroglyphs and inscriptions abound on the walls inside these dark passages. What's the problem, you ask? Well, there isn't any problem except in some of these places there is no soot to be found on the walls and the method employed by the ancient Egyptians to see while they painted their hieroglyphs in these dark places remains a great mystery. There are, however, two leading theories.

1. Traditional Egyptologists insist that ancient Egyptians arranged a complex system of shiny, large copper panels throughout the tunnels, which would reflect the sunlight needed to complete the drawings. This, they say, is the only possible way Egyptians could have been able to properly view the progress of their work without the aid of torches.

2. Some ufologists and historians, however, offer an alternative theory. Instead of copper mirrors, they propose that ancient Egypt was in possession of advanced technology allowing them to easily and efficiently illuminate their working space.

Unfortunately, neither view is completely satisfying. On the one hand, a complicated system of large copper panels seems an unlikely source of sufficient light, especially in some of the longer tunnels containing many bends and corners. On the other hand, though, aside from the megalithic statues and the existence of the pyramids themselves, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that ancient Egypt possessed any kind of advanced technology such as electricity or incandescent light bulbs . . . right?

The Dendera Light Bulb.

The photographs shown here are of one of the most fascinating hieroglyphs comprising three stone reliefs - one double representation (left) and one single (below) - in the Hathor Temple at the Dendera Temple Complex located in Egypt.

Some ufologists and historians assert that this is a representation of an ancient light bulb, advanced technology that ancient Egypt possessed enabling them to see through the darkness and check the progress of their artwork without leaving behind the lampblack deposits.

All aspects of the Dendera reliefs correspond exactly to modern electrical specifications. The bulb size and shape, the position of the elements relative to each other, and even the wiring patterns and insulators all match their modern counterparts, the only major difference being the use of symbolic imagery, such as gods and animals, to communicate certain concepts. Go ahead; take a good look at it. It appears to have all the components of a modern day light bulb. It has a transparent encasing. It has a filament, represented by a snake, coming out of the socket, which is represented here by a lotus flower. If you look closely enough, it even seems as though it is plugged into some kind of box sitting to the right of it.

Is the Dendera image, indeed, a depiction of an ancient light bulb indicating the presence of advanced technology in what is widely assumed to have been a primitive, agrarian society? Although the drawing looks promising, some hard questions still remain. First, and foremost, is how the Egyptians could have acquired such a useful tool in the first place (which ufologists claim had to come from extraterrestrials). Secondly, even after obtaining this tool, electrical energy to power it would have been essential and, as we all know, no such device to generate electricity has ever been found.

Or has it?

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.