*The fact that white vaporized carbon blends in well with the white painted walls of ancient Egyptian tombs is why most, if not all, modern archaeologists have not yet realized that carbon arc lights were used by ancient tomb painters, instead of smoke-belching torches, dirty oil lights, and dim candles. The subtle white evidence was apparently not noticed by nineteenth-century explorers who discovered non-violated Egyptian tombs, and modern archaeologists do not seem to be ready to admit their oversight. However, they may should quickly change their mind if they peek into
The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting.However, regardless of any modern-day negligence, the renowned astronomer Sir J. Norman Lockyer, who studied ancient Egyptian temples and tombs in depth, may have suspected the use of of ancient Egyptian electric carbon arc lamps way back in 1894. In his
Dawn of Astronomy, he pointed out: “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.”
The Electric Mirror has made this “possibility” 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.
Verifying the lily-white cleanliness of one particular ancient Egyptian tomb, Dr. F. L. Griffith, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, in an article entitled “The Religious Revolution in Egypt,” wrote: “There are few examples of rock architecture in Egypt more pleasing than this admirably proportioned, spotlessly white sepulcher of one who as governor of Akhetaton ranked as head of the notables. It is cut in the limestone cliffs that form a semicircle round the plain of Tell el-Amarna.”
Tombs like that one would have certainly required an electric light to illuminate them enough for ancient artisans to have placed intricate images on their walls. They could not have succeeded with the light from dim candles, sloppy oil lamps, or smoky torches that would have starved industrious workers of essential oxygen and left unsightly soot marks clinging all over the spotlessly white tomb walls and ceilings.
Reflecting the remnants of sunlight from many light-absorbing mirrors was also not a good option for pressing and complex projects demanding more than the Sun’s periodic appearance—in cloudless, dust-free daylight skies. Beside this, the maze of rooms in some tombs would have caused insurmountable problems for a large number of critically aligned mirrors continuously tracking one another as they tried to catch and bounce around light from a moving sun. Moreover, some artisan confined in a complex tomb would have eventually stepped in front of one of the mirrors and have broken the intricate chain of light—abruptly leaving others down the line struggling in total darkness.
These artisans using standard lights could not have completely removed the soot from the ceilings and walls after finishing their tasks because they would have had to clean up the smudge with the same smoke-belching devices that produced it. So how else, other than with the use of clean burning electric lamps, could they have so elaborately decorated about 400 underground grave systems with no trace of any smoke residue? Of course, some tombs now show soot marks left from the dirty lights of grave robbers who had previously opened and plundered them—but Lockyer spoke of “freshly-opened tombs.”