This Turns Me On

Early technology?

I have a thing for Ancient Egyptian stone sculpture and bas-relief. Not the painted hieroglyphics but the smooth solidly graceful lines of the carved stuff. I just feel good when I look at it. I find it visually satisfying. I also tend to be intrigued by the “unexplained”. When the pseudoscientific “Chariots of the Gods” material surfaced in the 70's, I was suitably fascinated. Talk of “could it be, perhaps…space coveralls ? ? ” (insert Twilight Zone theme song here) gave me chills and made my eyes water. Laughable but I loved it. So, this week, I’m googling imagery from Egyptian tombs and happen upon the photo above. It’s a picture of one of three stone reliefs in the Dendera Temple complex at Hathor Temple, Egypt. Egyptologists call this a depiction of the mythic lotus flowers each spawning a snake. Huh? Um, those look like enormous light bulbs to me! That armed device looks very much like a simple voltaic pile. (Egyptologists also interpret the upraised arms to mean "power"). Could it be….electricity!

Trying to grok ancient use of electricity and such, I stumbled on the Baghdad Battery. Fist-sized little clay vessels each with a copper-clad iron pin down the center, stoppered with an asphalt plug, unearthed in the 30's near Baghdad, Iraq (250 BC-224 AD?) It is surmised that each little packet, when filled with lemon juice or vinegar, becomes a simple galvanic cell producing a feeble jolt. In an experimental recreation, when ten are linked together they can produce up to 4 volts. Well, pretty weak and used for what? Electrostimulation? Maybe an early model Zapper. Who knows ? Perhaps only those visitors from the stars in their intriguing space coveralls could tell us. All I know is the idea of an ancient battery made out of earth and juice is just so sweet.