The characteristics of ancient Egyptians are indicated by a set of artifacts and customs that lasted for thousands of years. The Egyptians invented and used many basic machines, such as the ramp and the lever, to aid construction processes. They used rope trusses to stiffen the beam of ships. Egyptian paper, made from papyrus, and pottery was mass produced and exported throughout the Mediterranean basin. The wheel, however, did not arrive until foreign invaders introduced the chariot in the 16th century BC. The Egyptians also played an important role in developing Mediterranean maritime technology including ships and lighthouses.
Significant advances in ancient Egypt during the dynastic period include astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Their geometry was a necessary outgrowth of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile river. The 3,4,5 right triangle and other rules of thumb served to represent rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt. Egypt also was a center of alchemy research for much of the western world. Scenes depict scientists able to work in fields of alchemy, biology, chemistry, dentistry, anesthesiology, air flight, and more.
The pyramids and other advanced artifacts from ancient Egypt continue to awe archaeologists and archaeology enthusiasts, but is it possible the ancient Egyptians had aviation? A wooden carving dating from the 3rd century B.C. was found in a tomb in Sakkara (also spelled Saqqara), Egypt, in 1898. It was classified as a bird figure and placed with other bird carvings at the Cairo Museum, until Dr. Khalil Messiha, a medical doctor and Egyptologist, saw in it 1969 and realized it looked like the model airplanes he made as a child.
Some have suggested that the Egyptians had some form of understanding electric phenomena from observing lightning and interacting with electric fish (such as the Malapterurus electricus) or other animals (such as electric eels). The comment about lightning appears to come from a misunderstanding of a text referring to “high poles covered with copper plates” to argue this but Dr. Bolko Stern has written in detail explaining why the copper covered tops of poles (which were lower than the associated pylons) do not relate to electricity or lightning, pointing out that no evidence of anything used to manipulate electricity had been found in Egypt and that this was a magical and not a technical installation.
The single representation of the image, called the “Dendera light” by some alternative suggestions, exists on the left wall of the right wing in one of the crypts of the Hathor temple. Those exploring fringe theories of ancient technology have suggested that there were electric lights used in Ancient Egypt. Engineers have constructed a working model based on their interpretation of a relief found in the Hathor temple at the Dendera Temple complex.
The “Dendera light” is a technology of electrical lighting supposedly in existence in ancient Egypt, proposed by some fringe authors. Proponents argue that the technology is depicted in the Hathor temple at the Dendera Temple complex located in Egypt on three stone reliefs (one single and a double representation), which resemble some modern electical lighting systems. Egyptologists reject the theory and explain the reliefs as a typical set of symbolic images from Egyptian mythology.
Authors (such as Peter Krassa and Reinhard Habeck) have produced a basic theory of the device’s operation. The standard explanation, however, for the Dendera light, which comprises three stone reliefs (one single and a double representation) is that the depicted image represents a lotus leaf and flower from which a sacred snake is spawned in accordance with Egyptian mythological beliefs. This sacred snake sometimes is identified as the Milky Way (the snake) in the night sky (the leaf, lotus, or “bulb”) that became identified with Hathor because of her similar association in creation.
The cathode-ray tube or “Crookes’ tube” like object depicted in scenes from the temple of Hathor at Dendera may depict a relativistic source of these heavy electrons – which could drastically expedite the magical processes which involve these particular tubes.
The walls are decorated with human figures next to bulb-like objects reminiscent of oversized light bulbs. Inside these “bulbs” there are snakes in wavy lines. The snakes’ pointed tails issue from a lotus flower, which, without much imagination, can be interpreted as the socket of the bulb. Something similar to a wire leads to a small box on which the air god is kneeling. Adjacent to it stands a two-armed djed pillar as a symbol of power, which is connected to the snake. Also remarkable is the baboon-like demon holding two knives in his hands, which are interpreted as a protective and defensive power.
In his book The Eyes of the Sphinx, Erich Von Daniken writes that the relief is found in “a secret crypt” that “can be accessed only through a small opening. The room has a low ceiling. The air is stale and laced with the smell of dried urine from the guards who occasionally use it as a urinal.” The room is not so secret, however, as many tourists visit and photograph the room every year. Von Daniken sees the snake as a filament, the djed pillar as an insulator, and claims “the monkey with the sharpened knives symbolizes the danger that awaits those who do not understand the device.” This “device” is, the reader is assured, an ancient electric light bulb.
The light-bulb-like object engraved in a crypt under the Temple of Hathor in Egypt.
The most widely cited evidence that the ancient Egyptians used electricity is a relief beneath the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egypt that depicts figures standing around a large light-bulb-like object.
