Did Ancient Egypt Harness Electricity?

We are fairly certain what we can expect from history, we've all read our school books, we know what is true, and what isn't.

With great movies like 'National Treasure 1 and 2' and 'The Divinci Code,' gaining popularity, it makes many people hungry for real life historical mysteries.

One such mystery might be shrouding the ancient Egyptians.

While electricity's exact date of 'discovery' is associated with Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Edison, it very well may have existed with the ancient Egyptians.

So what has lead to this ridiculous sounding theory?

It appears that in a temple in Dendera there are some carvings of something that resembles a lamp, or light bulb.

When an electrical engineer saw it, he theorized that is may just work as a lamp, a colleague was actually able to make a model of it that worked, and it comes complete (with the help of two authors), a theory!

What you see when you look at the picture is some sort of bulb with a 'snake' like center, attached to this is what appear to be some sort of cord (einhornpress).

So is this actually a representation of a light bulb, what other 'facts' have lead to this theory that ancient Egyptians did in fact use electricity?

The next piece of 'evidence' that would seem to suggest the use of electricity is soot. To be more specific, the lack there of.

How could Egyptians have worked down in the tombs without the aide of light? The must have spent considerable time down there as well, which is evident through carvings, and paintings. Wouldn't they have needed a light source to complete those projects?

There are cases when no soot can be found on the walls, ceilings, floors or any where else. In other examples, where torches were known to be used, the surfaces are fairly covered thickly with the soot put off by lamps and torches.

However, the lack of soot does not necessarily mean that they had electricity, the Egyptians did have mirrors, they could have reflected light from the sun down to form a sort of crude light (world-mysteries).

The sheer distance down the light would have had to travel, and poor reflective quality of their mirror seems to beg otherwise.

So while it may be uncertain wither or not Egyptians had an early form of electricity, it is surely an interesting topic for consideration.

If they had electricity, what other advancements might they have been capable of? There is no doubt that there is room for more research to be done on this topic. Perhaps, one day we will know if this is wither an intriguing coincidence, or a lost historical fact.