The ancient Egyptian “paintings offer few representations of lamps, torches, or any other kind of light,” pointed out the great Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson, author of Materia Hieroglyphica and Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. But why—when they repeatedly illustrated almost every other Egyptian article? The answer lies in the fact that modern authorities are simply not looking for electric lights on the ancient monuments so they simply do not recognize them!
In her 1877 edition of Isis Unveiled, Madame H. P. Blavatsky wrote: "If we possess but little proof of the ancients having had any clear notions as to all the effects of electricity, there is very strong evidence, at all events, of their having been perfectly acquainted with electricity itself. 'Ben David,' says the author of The Occult Sciences, ''has asserted that Moses possessed some knowledge of the phenomena of electricity.' Professor Hirt, of Berlin, is of this opinion."
Wilkinson's mention of the lack of evidence for the “use of torches” by the ancient Egyptians reminds us of what the renowned astronomer Sir J. Norman Lockyer, who studied ancient Egyptian temples and tombs in depth, reported in 1894. In his Dawn of Astronomy, he pointed out an enigma—at the time—when he wrote: "In all freshly-opened tombs there are no traces whatever of any kind of combustion having taken place, even in the inner-most recesses. So strikingly evident is this that my friend M. Bouriant, while we were discussing this matter at Thebes, laughingly suggested the possibility that the electric light was known to the ancient Egyptians." That “possibility” has become reality. Now we know the ancient Egyptians did, indeed, know all about “the electric light” and used it to illuminate the night sky as well as temples and tombs—and it is no longer a laughing matter.
For much more on ancient electricity and electric lighting, read The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting.
This page was last modified on Friday, August 20, 2010