Electricity in Ancient Egypt

[MRC_Hans]

I recall the Mythbusters did a segment on the “Bagdad battery” and determined that it actually worked... But were pretty much unable to figure out a use for the thing other than shocking people....

Ancient batteries, if they really existed, might have been used for electro-plating of metals. I realize there is more to it than just having a battery, but the chemistry to build a battery is closely related to the chemistry of electro-plating.

Or, they might have been something entirely else.

Above all, they were not Egyptian.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Not like the ark of the covenant which was mentioned in writing and I understand even to internal construction. And I read it had been recreated on an experimental scale and was a battery of sorts... Which left little room for stone tablets.

No, not a battery. However, it might be interpreted as a capacitor. If it was somehow charged, it might retain its charge for hours, even days, in the dry desert climate and might have given nasty shocks.

Hans.

 

[smartcooky]

The what's this now?

I was going to ask the same thing.

Is there any kind of source for this information?

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-engineer-who-said-the-ark-of-the-covenant-was-a-gia-1598583115?IR=T

According to an article that appeared in the March 5th, 1933 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, Frederick Rogers, the Dean of the Department of Engineering at the Lewis Institute of Technology, conducted a careful study of the construction of the Ark as described in the Bible, and concluded that its design matched a perfectly constructed simple electric condenser:

The scientific interest in the construction pointed out by Prof. Rogers was that the acacia wood box—about 40 inches long and slightly less than 30 inches in width and in depth—not only was lined with gold teal on the inside but overlaid with the some metal without.

This, according to Prof. Rogers, is the first step that any modern boy with a flare for electrical experimentation will take to create a Leyden jar, except that in the Leyden jar, a glass receptacle is coated on the inside and outside with tin foil instead of gold. Then, with the aid of a rod with a small knob at the top and a short chain at the bottom which is inserted through the cork so that the chain can make contact with the bottom of the jar, the young experimenter is ready to collect small charges of bottled lighting.​

 

[ahhell]

Sticking a couple of nails made from dissimilar metals into a lemon works too. It means nothing.



Yep.

The use of electricity requires wires. How did they make wires?

To distribute electricity to do any work requires a reticulation system, wires, insulators, posts and poles. How did they make them, and where are they?

To make a lamp, you need to be able to suck down the bulb to a near vacuum, and seal it off. How did they do that?



I can't.

Duh, they used the pyramids like Tesla's magic tower, transmitting electricity through the air.

 

[Thermal]

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-engineer-who-said-the-ark-of-the-covenant-was-a-gia-1598583115?IR=T

According to an article that appeared in the March 5th, 1933 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, Frederick Rogers, the Dean of the Department of Engineering at the Lewis Institute of Technology, conducted a careful study of the construction of the Ark as described in the Bible, and concluded that its design matched a perfectly constructed simple electric condenser:

The scientific interest in the construction pointed out by Prof. Rogers was that the acacia wood box—about 40 inches long and slightly less than 30 inches in width and in depth—not only was lined with gold teal on the inside but overlaid with the some metal without.

This, according to Prof. Rogers, is the first step that any modern boy with a flare for electrical experimentation will take to create a Leyden jar, except that in the Leyden jar, a glass receptacle is coated on the inside and outside with tin foil instead of gold. Then, with the aid of a rod with a small knob at the top and a short chain at the bottom which is inserted through the cork so that the chain can make contact with the bottom of the jar, the young experimenter is ready to collect small charges of bottled lighting.​

Well...okay, but its kind of a huge logical leap to go from a wood box with gold leaf to the blue print of a condenser...I mean, color me disagreeable and all, but....

 

[Myriad]

Okay, as far as I understand it, here's the hypothesis the OP is referring to. Large granite sarcophagi (actually rectangular vaults) have been discovered containing bull bones. The vaults have large heavy granite lids, and are precisely crafted and smoothly polished so that the weight of the lids would produce a true hermetic seal. The prevailing archaeological theory is that these were burials of sacred bulls, but (unlike other kinds of sarcophagi used by ancient Egyptians) the vaults are much larger than would be needed for this purpose. It appears the vaults were buried at the time of their creation (rather than accidentally over subsequent time), although it's not clear whether the lids were covered over by that burial.

Borisov proposes that the purpose of these vaults was to generate electric charges that would glow in the air above the site they were buried. The process is, the vaults were filled with water, grains, and a bull carcass which would ferment anaerobically and produce very high pressures inside the vaults from the accumulation of carbon dioxide. The need to contain high pressures explains the thickness of the vaults' granite walls and the heavy construction of the lids. The internal pressure acting on the quartz in the granite would produce piezoelectric charges that would migrate upward and cause the glow. A similar phenomenon is believed to occur when earthquakes cause underground displacements of large masses of granite.

The problem I see with this is, the piezoelectric effect only produces power when the pressure is changing. You can't just put a weight on top of a piezo crystal and run your digital watch from it. (Otherwise the vaults etc. would be unnecessary; all the granite rock already under enormous pressures deep underground would be pumping out pizeolecectric power!) You have to keep increasing the pressure, or cycle the pressure on and off. You only get power when you're doing work on the crystal. This could be happening during an earthquake when the rocks are moving and shaking. But if you just squeeze the rock once, you get a charge across it, which might produce a glow, but the glow (such as a corona discharge) will soon dissipate the charge.

It's possible that the vaults and lids were designed to contain and then periodically release the pressure (by forced upward displacement of the lid, momentarily breaking the seal), potentially continuing to produce piezoelectric effects for as long as the fermentation went on. Perhaps that's part of the process Borisov had in mind, but he doesn't appear to have said so, or his ideas weren't being accurately reported. Of course, you wouldn't expect the vaults and lids to be completely buried in that case.

Things I have my doubts about: how the randomly oriented quartz grains throughout a block of granite manage to produce a large net piezoelectric charge when the whole block is compressed and strained; and how that charge ends up causing glowing discharges in the air above the site. However, if those same phenomena are valid explanation for earthquake lights, maybe it actually is possible.

 

[HansMustermann]

I was just about to object the same: you need the pressure to change all the time, to get anything lasting out of it. Just putting a big rock on top of another big rock, I suppose it might make it glow faintly and briefly, if you were doing it in the dark, but that would be the end of it.

For anything that's done in daylight, as their work would be, I don't know how many people have been to Egypt, but it's very bright down there. The tropic runs right through the middle of it. And rainy days are as good as non-existent. If it's day time, the sun shines really bright. It's not your average northern British autumn day.

So if anything glowed or sparked just a little, nobody would notice, really.

 

[MEequalsIxR]

I have come across the Egyptian amphora (did they have amphora or just the Greeks and Romans?) batteries theory before. Intriguing and leads to some interesting speculation but no proof or even much evidence there is any basis for it. There are likely other reasons why those things were discovered in the vessels so to me it's just a fun idea to toss around.

When someone makes the argument "If that was not the purpose of such massive boxes made from such hard material, then what was?" I get lost immediately. Before Newton explained gravity someone could have said the weight of the air or the weight of the aether was what was pushing use down after all what else could it be? but that didn't mean the air or aether was the correct explanation any more than I have no explanation for how the Nazca Lines were made were made therefore aliens had to have done it.

It is known about 2000 years ago the Greeks had a turbine steam engine. It was at most an amusement or a toy for discussion no one made use of it to do work. They also had automata for amusement but again did no work. One of the ancient cultures supposedly had temple doors that operated by steam pressure so maybe that is work but beyond that had no practical applications. Ancients were every bit as smart and clever as moderns just had more limitations in access to knowledge, math (although they had quite a bit), materials and materials science. They also had a lot of time on their hands to think about stuff which moderns often seem to lack.

The arc of the covenant may well have been a type of capacitor - the instructions the few permitted to handle it or carry it were given seems to indicate special handling was demanded but for practical or religious reasons who really knows. Supposedly the arc had long handles made of wood inserted into loops or pockets on the side to pick it and carry would be consistent with handling a large electrical charge but that was pretty much how a sedan chair was handled and the largest electrical charge involved was the temper of the rider.

 

[HansMustermann]

Egyptians wrote everything down about the health and medical advances they made. A lot has survived into today. No idea how much was lost along the way

Actually, slight clarification: the Egyptians wrote down EVERYTHING. We have even novels from them. For example the world's first known historical novel is from middle kingdom Egypt.

And on the topic of technology, people vastly underestimate the kind of stuff we have in written form from them, and don't have to guess. As a random example -- and I know YOU're not into the ancient aliens kind of nonsense, but just as an example -- we even have such illustrations on tomb walls as the supervisor boring a diorite vase. Helpfully captioned, "the supervisor of the craftsmen boring a diorite vase." So when the ancient alien idiots go, "but how did they do it without tungsten drills," well, we not only know how, we have an exact illustration even.

Not only that, but when they did stuff, they kept records. We know how much bread and beer the workers for the great pyramid got, for example.

So if they had some piezoelectric earthquake devices, SOMEONE would have written about it. Hell, it wouldn't even necessarily have to be the technical manual. Someone might have mentioned it in a novel.

 

[MattNelson]

Actually, slight clarification: the Egyptians wrote down EVERYTHING. We have even novels from them. For example the world's first known historical novel is from middle kingdom Egypt.

And on the topic of technology, people vastly underestimate the kind of stuff we have in written form from them, and don't have to guess. As a random example -- and I know YOU're not into the ancient aliens kind of nonsense, but just as an example -- we even have such illustrations on tomb walls as the supervisor boring a diorite vase. Helpfully captioned, "the supervisor of the craftsmen boring a diorite vase." So when the ancient alien idiots go, "but how did they do it without tungsten drills," well, we not only know how, we have an exact illustration even.

Not only that, but when they did stuff, they kept records. We know how much bread and beer the workers for the great pyramid got, for example.

So if they had some piezoelectric earthquake devices, SOMEONE would have written about it. Hell, it wouldn't even necessarily have to be the technical manual. Someone might have mentioned it in a novel.

This is one of the problems I have with the theory. Since a "dark age" ensued not long after the creation of the Serapeum, I thought that may explain the lack of historical validation for an alleged light above Saqqara. Apparently the site was expanded over the years, beginning circa 1350 B.C. Dark age: 1177/1186.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, you probably understand that a dark age just means that we lack much written source material from that time. It doesn't make the previous or the next texts vanish from existence. E.g., from the same 14'th century BCE we still have a TON of texts, e.g., the massive body known as the Amarna letters. Those letters alone go all the way to 1332 BCE.

The tunnel for the Apis bull burial chambers, however, have been built AFAIK by Khaemweset, a son of Ramesses II, during the reign of his father. That's 13'th century BCE. Again, hardly a dark age. In fact, the reign of Ramesses II is pretty much one of the best known, and pretty much the polar opposite of a dark age.

Actually, even the 1177 BCE date is IMHO very wrong for Egypt as dark ages go. While civilizations around Egypt have been having the end of Bronze Age collapse starting around that point, Egypt survived AND left enough written material all through it. Egypt would only be severely weakened, but it would take another hundred years or so before it finally collapsed into the third intermediate period.

So basically you have a clean two hundred years of an Egypt that was still very organized and very fond of writing, between those vaults and anything even vaguely resembling a dark age in Egypt. Well, more like sorta grey-ish than dark, really.

And then there's the issue of OUTSIDE Egypt. While a lot of great empires fell into dark ages, and even Egypt was weakened, there was one empire that weathered it just fine: the Assyrians. Given that they were in constant contact with Egypt, both diplomatic and trade, you'd think that if Egypt had magical glowing stones, someone would have written about it there.

 

[Darat]

Where are the precursors to this technology? How did they work this out prior to the first "identified" version? Can we duplicate the claimed technology (don't need to create a 1:1 scale model)?

 

[Dave Rogers]

However, if those same phenomena are valid explanation for earthquake lights, maybe it actually is possible.

Given that it's never been definitely established whether earthquake lights are a single phenomenon, a set of different phenomena or misidentification of unrelated phenomena, and there are multiple proposed hypotheses for explaining them even if they are a single phenomenon of which piezoelectric discharges are only one, that's a mighty big "if".

Dave

 

[Andy_Ross]

Where are the precursors to this technology? How did they work this out prior to the first "identified" version? Can we duplicate the claimed technology (don't need to create a 1:1 scale model)?

A standard thing with 'secret history' types is isolated artefacts and phenomenon.

they seem to think things appear complete and ready to go out of nowhere. There is never any need for any supporting development, infrastructure or technology.

 

[Tolls]

Leo DaV. made a clockwork loin and left us his notebook, it was recreated for a museum. Amazing feat for his times and also noteworthy to be written about at the time. For a mere novelty item to amuse a leader.

Others have asked about the ark battery, but personally I'm more intrigued by daVinci's clockwork loin.

An apparently amusing one at that.

Boggles the mind, it does...

 

[EHocking]

Others have asked about the ark battery, but personally I'm more intrigued by daVinci's clockwork loin.

An apparently amusing one at that.

Boggles the mind, it does...

I don’t think that is where you would use it for best effect.

 

[smartcooky]

A standard thing with 'secret history' types is isolated artefacts and phenomenon.

they seem to think things appear complete and ready to go out of nowhere. There is never any need for any supporting development, infrastructure or technology.

Aliensdidit.

 

[Cheetah]

Could there be a market for such a thing?


Edit: Sorry still wondering about the artificial loin.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Where are the precursors to this technology?

This.

The end.

 

[8enotto]

The secret history of certain things that has no apparent backup begs being doubted.

But it can raise doubts about accidental engineering, getting stuff in nearly the right order to create something incredible. Something with no understood reason at the time.

If then current ideas could not explain then possibly a divine reason was given.

But if it was documented it possibly could be duplicated. Maybe even in times science was more advanced to be able to understand and measure what is going on.

Having seen a lot of Leo's doodles become a solid object via the magic of electronic media (I really couldn't afford to travel that much)
he has become a point of interest to me. Some of his inventions work, some couldn't as he lacked key elements and others were lost with pages of his notebook. We may unknowingly use them daily.

Every time something is presented that appears to be out of proper place and time I file it away as such. I cannot guess the motivation of the dude that found and reported it as I wasn't there. He may have been doing it right or a fame seeker with a bad agenda.


Maybe it's a modern altercation to a real antiquity like the supposed Peruvian alien mummies. Found out of context with no site photos nor even exact information to the location.
Others have been able to duplicate the oddity they are and falsifiers have come forward as to how to do it.

Maybe it was placed there shortly after the tomb was opened and then discovered. Egyptian antiquity officials have a list of people never to be given permission to explore there again.
Mention secret rooms under the Sphinx and watch yourself go home quickly. Numerologist types also make the list pretty fast.
You have to enter with the idea of discovery of what is there and then go slowly and carefully looking at it. Not go in knowing "aliens did it" and apply the artifacts to theory.