Ancient Technology
Ancient telescopes
Ancient theaters
Hebrew technology
Arc of the Covenant
Electricity History
Old searchlights
The Pharos light
Contact Info
Links Page
 
 



Ancient Technology illustrated


Ancient Technology appeared in the Egyptian lighthouse at Alexandria long ago.  Speaking of the ancient Egyptian technology on the Pharos Lighthouse, "which has no equal on the face of the earth," the medieval Arab geographer Al Bakri claimed the Alexandrians "assigned to its summit the celebrated mirror, which was made from a mixture of remarkable and extraordinary substances; they were able to see by it enemy ships on their way towards Alexandria, several days away, to prepare themselves for defense."  Beside the mirror's function as a telescope, which was obviously used also to study the stars, it was used as a heliostat in sunlight; and at its center, a brilliant arc-light fire flashed out messages on cloudy days and at night.


The Lighthouse of Alexandria illustrated

 

Ancient Technology and Lighthouse of Alexandria in animation“That the Pharos was used as a signal-station as well as a lighthouse is certain,” wrote Dr. A. J. Butler, “and at the time of the Arab conquest it was in full working order and flashed the sun by day and its own fire by night many leagues over the sea.” He went on to claim in his exhaustive work titled The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of Roman Dominion that it was a “conspicuous landmark visible by day and by night at a distance of sixty or seventy miles.”   At night, electricity, generating a brilliant carbon arc searchlight beam that bounced off the distant clouds, is what made the Pharos's light so conspicuous at an over-the-horizon "distance of sixty or seventy miles."  The overwhelming evidence for its use in antiquity is provided in Larry Brian Radka's Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting, as well as in recent articles by him in progressive magazines like Atlantis Rising, World Explorer, Ancient America, Mysteries, and The New Archaeology Review.

Ancient and Modern Telescopes illustratedHowever, Larry and Dr. Butler are not alone in pointing out this ancient technology.  Another conscious scholar, of the opposite sex, was also inspired to write about the ancient use of telescopes and electricity.  In 1877, in Vol. I of Isis Unveiled, the renowned Russian theosophist H. P. Blavatsky pointed out that "Some modern writers deny the fact that a great mirror was placed in the light-house of the Alexandrian port [of Egypt], for the purpose of discovering vessels at a distance at sea.  But the renowned Buffon [a famous French naturalist] believed in it; for he honestly confesses that 'if the mirror really existed, as I firmly believe it did, to the ancients belong the honor of the invention of the telescope.'"

She also pointed out that

“Whenever, in the pride of some new discovery, we throw a look into the past, we find, to our dismay, certain vestiges which indicate the possibility, if not the certainty, that the alleged discovery was not totally unknown to the ancients.  It is generally asserted that neither the early inhabitants of the Mosaic times, nor even the more civilized nations of the Ptolemaic period were acquainted with electricity.  If we remain undisturbed in this opinion, it is not for the lack of proofs to the contrary.”

From Mariette's "Denderah, General Description of the Great Temple of this City," Paris 1875One of those proofs to the contrary is shown on the Ptolemaic artifact on the right. It shows two ancient Egyptian goddesses viewing wall text at the temple of Denderah by the light of what appears to be two electric filament lamps.

Edison reinvented me!The great Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson, author of Materia Hieroglyphica and Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, pointed out that the ancient Egyptian “paintings offer few representations of lamps, torches, or any other kind of light.”  Why—when they repeatedly illustrate 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."

I just have no effect!"Michaelis remarks—firstly: 'that there is no indication that lightning ever struck the temple of Jerusalem, during a thousand years.  Secondly, that according to Josephus, a forest of points . . . of gold and very sharp, covered the roof of the temple.  Thirdly, that this roof communicated with the caverns in the hill upon which the temple was situated, by means of pipes in connection with the gilding [electroplating?] which covered all the exterior of the building; in consequence of which the points would act as conductors.'”

From Mariette's "Denderah, General Description of the Great Temple of this City," Paris 1875These arc lighting ceremonies   add weight to Madame Blavatsky's contention that the ancients possessed electrical knowledge. 

We priests hide our faces from light!The Denderah illustration on the right clearly shows a royal arc light ceremony under a roof, like the one at Jerusalem, covered with "a forest of points" to protect it from lightning.

From Petrie's "Dendereh 1898 Seventeenth Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, London 1900And this one, found by Petrie on an ancient tomb wall at Denderah, shows what appears to be an electric lamp with three bulbs and a power cord.

However, the ancient use of electric lighting was not confined to Egypt.  Hymn XV-3 of the sacred Sanskrit verses of the Indian Atharvaveda, dating back to around 1,000 B.C., declares:  "O well-versed engineer make use of this terrible electric power  fit to be utilized for useful purposes by controlling it, for non-violent, brilliant light like the dawn [like a brilliant carbon arc light].  It has the potentiality to help hearing, control energy, and spread light in all quarters."  (Devi Chand's translation)

Another verse of Chand's translation states:  "O current electricity of high voltage, safely carried by electric wires, you kill many enemies in the war, waged by learned persons or through the help of natural forces. (Hymn XXXVII-4)  This verse certainly shows that the Indians (Buddhists) utilized electrical technology in antiquity, just like the Egyptians.  The "electric wires" may have been in cables like the one above.

This searchlight beam is similar to the Egyptian ones below!

Hymn XLV—3) even mentions the searchlight by name.  The holy text states: “Let this Anjana, which is got from the mountains, which creates four-fold energy i.e., hydraulic power, enhancement of splendor, born of heat, predominating light, like the searchlight, make all the quarters and the mid-quarters peaceful for thee (man or king).”

From Burgess's "Buddhist Stupas in Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta" 1882  

Spotlights on ancient IndiaThe illustration above confirms Devi Chand's translation of verse XV-3 of the Atharvaveda.  Here we have a Buddhist electric mirror (searchlight), "brilliant like the dawn," cut into a third-century-B.C. stone monument dug up at the ancient "Hill of Lights" in the ruins of a stupa at Amaravati, in modern-day India.  Note the electrical guts in this searchlight of ancient India, the dual serpent heads representing positive and negative charges of D.C. electricity commonly used in searchlights, and, above all, the fly whisks that the priestly technicians are using to chase insects away from the extremely bright light.  Need we any more physical evidence of ancient electric mirrors or searchlights?

On slabs from the stupa at Amaravati, in Burgess's work

Here are ancient Buddhist priests perhaps holding up filament-types of electric lamps.

An actual photograph in one of the Denderah Temple cryptsAnd here we see electric searchlights illustrated in one of the crypts under the ancient temple at Denderah.

Anti-aircraft searchlights, courtesy of the British Royal Engineers, from "Wonders of World Engineering"


An electric mirror or primitive searchlightWilkinson'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.


From Mariette's "Denderah, General Description of the Great Temple of this City," Paris 1875Added proof is found on the right where we find two priests giving the light deity Hathor, or Isis, what appears to be an electric lamp, battery and cable.

An actual photograph in one of the Denderah Temple cryptsThe Egyptian goddess Isis is shown sitting upon her throne here, before four large filament lights powered by a huge electric battery in the Temple of Denderah. The naked priest is saluting her with his smaller battery-powered light.

An old Czechoslavakian University of Karlova arc lightNote the beads on the wires connecting the battery to the lamps above.  Using beads, like those on the old-fashioned carbon arc light on our left, was one of the first ways for insulating electrical wires in the nineteenth century.  Cotton, after beads, was used for this purpose extensively in the early twentieth century, but the Egyptians, who grew it widely, apparently used it for electrical insulation thousands of years before then.  This is evident above in the Denderah tomb illustration of the Egyptian three-bulb lamp. A cotton cord wrapped in a similar way to those manufactured a hundred years ago appears to be connected to it.   For more on this ancient discovery, and many others, see The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting.

Nevertheless, like the goddess Hathor standing above, Lucian of Samosata on the Euphrates spoke of a Syrian goddess who also wore an electric light on her head   This second-century historian maintained:  "She bears on her head a stone called a 'lamp,' and it receives its name from its function.  That stone shines in the night with great clarity and provides the whole temple with light, as with [oil] lamps.  In the daytime, it shines dimly, but has a very fiery aspect."  The "lamp" may have resembled the one worn by the goddess of light Hathor or one of the four large electric lights behind the light goddess Isis in the temple at Denderah illustrated above.


"It cannot be quenched!"


Furthermore, a couple of centuries later, in his City of God, St. Augustine (354—430 A.D.) pointed out that in Egypt, “There was, and still is, a temple of Venus, in which a lamp burns so strongly in the open air that no storm or rain extinguishes it.”  He blamed “the reality” of this marvelous lamp, which was likely an arc light, on the miracles of the “black arts” performed by demons and men.  He wrote:

I'm a demonic light!"We add to that inextinguishable lamp a host of other marvels of human and of magical origin—that is miracles of the demon’s black arts performed by men, and miracles performed by the demons themselves.  If we choose to deny the reality of these, we shall ourselves be in conflict with the truth of the sacred books in which we believe.  Thus either human ingenuity has devised in that inextinguishable lamp some contrivance based on the asbestos stone [carbon] or else it was contrived by magic art to give men something to marvel at in that shrine; or perhaps some demon presented himself there under the name of Venus with which such effect that this prodigy was displayed to the public there and continued there for so many years."

A Therapeutic Sun Lamp from Radka's CollectionSt. Augustine also claimed that the asbestos stone "has no fire of its own, and yet, when it has received fire, blazes so fiercely with a fire not its own that it cannot be quenched.”  This points to the carbon in an arc light receiving its fire from an electric source—an ancient battery—“not its own.” Furthermore, he also claimed “no storm or rain extinguishes it.”  This also points to the electric carbon arc light because a nineteenth-century edition of Chamber’s Encyclopaedia maintains that it “can be produced in a vacuum, and below the surface of water, oils, and other non-conducting liquids, and it is thus quite independent of the action of the air.”


The thunderbolt was the first arc light.A product of the same century, Master Electrical Engineer John B. Varity, in Electricity up to Date for Light, Power, and Traction, wrote:  "Although the study of Electricity has only been developed within the last century, there is no doubt that its existence was known to the civilized world of 2000 years ago.  It may well be that Electricity was the magic of the Ancients, and that Tullus Hostilius, who, according to the Roman myth, incurred the wrath of Jove for practicing magical arts and was struck dead with a thunderbolt, may have met a more prosaic end through receiving a fatal shock while experimenting with a high pressure current."


From Mariette's "Denderah, General Description of the Great Temple of this City," Paris 1875


This may have been the type of "high pressure current" that was needed to power the Denderah-temple lights with wiring schematics, bulbs, and batteries that appear above.

Hopefully, the schematic of the (red) batteries hooked up to the (white) electric lights in B above will finally convince even the most dedicated skeptic that that the ancient Egyptians used electric lights, including the Edison filament variety.  In this Denderah-Temple illustration, we see one end of the battery cable loops (like those in A)—which serve also as carrying straps when not connected to a lamp—disconnected from their batteries and hooked up to the electric lamps that they are powering.

The arrangement at the top of illustration B apparently has two (hidden) electric bulbs (each powered by its own battery) inside the flower-designed reflector, and two separate white lights are beaming upward out of its Lotus (a sun or light symbol) reflector. The batteries below it are tied together in parallel and supply power to two more reflective bulb holders. The drawing of this type of electrical arrangement is repeated at least three more times on the walls of the temple at Denderah.

In C, three Egyptian electric lights sit on a stand that contains their power source—accessed by what appears to be a tall, narrow door in the front of it.  Notice the two loops in the cables at the base of the stem of the lamp with the lotus shade or reflector on the center of the stand.  One probably runs to the positive and the other to the negative terminals of its battery.

In D, four electric lamps with flower reflectors on a cornice seem to be connected in series with wire nuts, but internal wires in their cables may connect them in parallel instead. (We added labels and colors in all of these illustrations for emphasis.)


From Mariette's 1875 work


Blazing carbons like those in an arc lightThe illustration above, from the ancient temple at Denderah, shows how the ancient Egyptians depicted the action of an electric carbon arc light, the ignition point of Saint Augustine's indistinguishable lamp.  Perhaps the flames are shooting up toward the typically rounded point of the negative carbon from the crater generated by the positive electrode, which typically flames up and is appropriately lighting up the Goddess of Light Hathor (or Isis).  With respect to the overlapping arrow heads, they may be depicting an erroneous style (Conventional Method) of showing the direction of electric current flow.  Or, perhaps they are pointed to a brilliant object in the sky, thereby demonstrating that the positive crater of this ancient carbon arc light blazed as brightly as the Sun, like the light on the Ark of the Covenant.

And The Catholic Encyclopedia leads us to a strong tip as to where the mysterious elements of the Arc of the Covenant migrated.  This authority reveals that “St. Bede relates (Hist. Eccles. Angl., V, 15) that Arculf, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 670 or 690, was cast by tempest on the shore of Scotland.  He was hospitably received by Adamnan, the abbot of the island monastery of Iona, to whom he gave a detailed narrative of his travels to the Holy Land, with specifications and designs of the sanctuaries so precise that Adamnan, with aid from some extraneous sources, was able to produce a descriptive work in three books, dealing with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the principal towns of Palestine, and Constantinople.  Adamnan presented a copy of this work to Aldfrith, King of Northumbria in 698.  It aims at giving a faithful account of what Arculf actually saw during his journey.  As the latter 'joined the zeal of an antiquarian to the devotion of a pilgrim during his nine months’ stay in the Holy City, the work contains many curious details that might otherwise have never been chronicled.'”  The rest of the story lies in The Electric Mirror.


Click the book cover below for more details:



REFERENCES FOR THE BOOK ABOVE AND INFORMATION ON THIS WEB SITE:


There are many more not listed!


BOOKS


Adam, Jean-Pierre & Blanc, Nicole, Les Sept Merveilles du Monde (The Seven Wonders of the World), Paris 1989                                        

Adams, W. H. Davenport, Lighthouses and Lightships: A Descriptive and Historical Account of Their Mode of Construction and Organization, London 1871

Adler, Marcus N., The Itinerary of Benjamin Tudela, London 1907

Alberti, Leon Battista, The Ten Books of Architecture, The 1755 Leoni Edition, a reprint, N. Y. 1986

Barrett, Douglas, Sculptures from Amaravati in the British Museum, London 1954

Barton, George A., Archaeology and the Bible, Philadelphia 1916

Berlitz, Charles, Charles Berlitz’s World of the Odd and the Awesome, New York 1991

Blavatsky, H. P., Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, 2 volumes. N. Y. 1877

Bombaugh, C. C., Gleanings from the Harvest-Fields of Literature, Science, and Art, Baltimore 1860; Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest-Fields of Literature, (unabridged edition) Hartford, Connecticut 1875

Bouvier, Hannah M., Familiar Astronomy, Philadelphia 1857

Breasted, James Henry, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, N. Y. 1905 & 1951

Breccia, Ev.,  Alexandrea ad Ægyptum, A Guide to the Ancient and Modern Town, and to its Graeco Roman Museum, Bergamo, 1922

Brennan, Herbie, The Secret History of Ancient Egypt, New York 2001

Brodrick, M. &  A, A, Morton,  A Concise Dictionary of Egyptian Archaeology,  London 1902

Brugsch-Bey, Heinrich, Egypt Under the Pharaohs, History Derived Entirely From the Monuments, London 1902

Brumbaugh, Robert S., Ancient Greek Gadgets and Machines, New York 1966

Budge, E. A. Wallis, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (a Dover reprint) in 2 Volumes, N.Y. 1978, Book of the Glory of Kings, London 1932, The Book of the Dead (a 1967 Dover reprint), London 1895, The Gods of the Egyptians, (a Dover reprint), 2 Volumes, New York 1969

Bunson, Margaret, The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, New York 1991

Burgess, Jas., The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta in the Krishna District, Madras Presidency, surveyed in 1882, (a reprint), New Delhi 1996

Burritt, Elijah H., Geography of the Heavens and Class-book of Astronomy, New York 1872

Butler, Alfred J., The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion (a revised reprint of the1902 edition), Oxford 1978

Carter, Howard and Mace, A.C., The Tomb of Tutankhamen, (reprint of the 1923 ed.), N.Y. 1963

Cary, Ferdinand E., The Standard Book of Knowledge, Chicago 1904

Chand, Devi, The Atharvaveda, New Delhi 2002

Childress, David Hatcher, Technology of the Gods, The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients, Kempton, IL 2000

Clarke, Arthur C., Mysterious World, New York 1980

Clayton, Peter A. & Price, Martin J.,  Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, London 1988

Conklin, Irving, Guideposts of the Sea, New York 1939

Cooper, W. R., Primary Batteries, Their Theory, Construction and Use, London 1920

Couat, Auguste,  Alexandrian Poetry Under the First Three Ptolemies (324—222 B.C.), translated from the French in 1930 by Dr. James Loeb, London 1931

Corliss, William R., Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts, Glen Arm, Md. 1978

Croft, Terrell, Practical Electric Illumination and Signal Wiring, New York 1917

Crosthwaite, H.,  Ka, A Handbook of Mythology, Sacred Practices, Electrical Phenomena, and their Linguistic Connections in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Princeton 1992

Davis, John D., A Dictionary of the Bible, Philadelphia 1903

De Camp, L. Sprague, The Ancient Engineers, New York 1960

Derr, Louis,  Editor-in-Chief, Cyclopaedia of Engineering, Vol. 5 of 5 Volumes, Chicago 1906

Dick, Thomas, The Complete Works of Thomas Dick, 11 vols. in two, St. Louis, Mo. 1857

Doan, Francis H., Electrical Measurements, Lamps and Heating (328) Part of the International Library of Technology, Scranton, Pennsylvania 1925

Donaldson, T. L., Architectura Numismatica, Ancient Architecture on Greek and Roman Coins, London 1859

Easton, M. G., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, (a reprint), London 1894

Ellis, William S., Glass, New York 1998

Empereur, Jean-Yves, Le Phare d’Alexandrie (The Lighthouse of Alexandria), La Merveille retrouvée (The Recovered Wonder) Evreux 1998, Alexandria, Jewel of Egypt, translated by Jane Brenton, London 2002

Fergusson, James, Tree & Serpent Worship or Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India from the Topes at Sanchi and Amravati, London 1868

Fisher, Clyde, The Marvels and Mysteries of Science, New York 1941

Forster, E. M.,  Alexandria, A History and a Guide, Alexandria 1922

Foss, Michael, The Search for Cleopatra, New York 1997

Fraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 volumes, New York 1972

Frith, H., The Triumphs of Engineering, Philadelphia, circa 1900

Georgiadès, Patrice, Les Secrets du Phare d’Alexandrie (The Secrets of the Lighthouse of Alexandria), Alexandria 1978

Goldberg, Benjamim, The Mirror and Man, Charlottesville 1985

Gregory, Richard, Mirrors in Mind, New York 1997

Guthrie, Kenneth S., The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, Grand Rapids, MI 1987

Haas, Christopher, Alexandria in Late Antiquity, Baltimore 1997

Hague, D. & Christie, R., Lighthouses, Their Architecture, History and  Archaeology, Wales 1975

Hammerton, J. A., Universal World History, vols. 1,2, 3.4 & 5, 1939, Wonders of the Past, 2 volumes, N. Y.  1923

Hammond, John Winthrop, Men and Volts, The Story of General Electric, N.Y. 1941

Harriss, Joseph, The Tallest Tower, Boston 1975

Hazlitt, William, The Classical Gazetteer, A Dictionary of Ancient Sites, London 1851

Higgins, Godfrey, The Celtic Druids, London 1829

Hilprecht, HV., Explorations in Bible Lands During the 19th Century, Philadelphia 1903

Holm, Adolph, History of Greece, Volume IV, Frederick Clarke, trans., London 1902

Hopkinson, John, Original Papers on Dynamo Machinery and Allied Subjects, New York 1893

Howell, John W. & Schroeder, Henry, History of the Incandescent Lamp, Schenectady, N. Y. 1927

Humphrey, J. W., Olson, J. P., Sherwood, A. N., Greek and Roman Technology, A Sourcebook, N.Y. 1998

James, Peter & Thorpe, Nick, Ancient Inventions, New York 1994

Jones, Bernard E., Electric Primary Batteries, A Practical Guide to Their Construction and Use, London 1911

Knudson, Albert C., The Religious Teachings of the Old Testament, New York 1918

König, Wilhelm, Neun Jahre Irak (Nine Years in Iraq) Brün, München, Wien, 1940

Kunz, George Frederick, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones, Philadelphia 1913

Larson, Linda, San Jose’s Monument to Progress: The Electric Light Tower, San Jose, California 1989

Lemprière, John,  A Classical Dictionary, Fourth Edition, London 1842

Lockyer, J. Norman, The Dawn of Astronomy, a reprint of the 1894 edition

Luckiesh, M., Artificial Light, Its Influence Upon Civilization, New York 1920

Ludwig, Emil, The Nile, translated by Mary H. Lindsay, N. Y. 1937, The Mediterranean, Saga of a Sea, translated from the German by Barrows Mussey, London 1942,

Mariette-Bey, Auguste Édouard (“Bey” is a title of respect) Dendérah, Description Générale du Grand Temple de Cette Ville (Denderah, General Description of the Great Temple of this City), Paris 1875,

Mariette, Alphonse, The Monuments of Upper Egypt, his translation of the French of his brother Auguste’s Itinéraire de la Haute Égypte (Itinerary of Upper Egypt) into English, Boston 1890

Marshall, Percival, Small Accumulators, How Made and Used, London 1907

Mattingly, H., Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire, London 1928

Maurice, Thomas, Indian Antiquities or Dissertations of Hindostan, 7 volumes, London 1812

McGovern, John, The Fireside University, Chicago 1909

Michalowski, Kzazimierz, Art of Ancient Egypt, New York (no date)

Milne, J. G., Catalogue of Alexandrian Coins, (reprint) N. Y. 1982

Myatt, Frederick, The March to Magdala, The Abyssinian War 1868, London 1970

Noorbergen, Rene, Secrets of the Lost Races, New Discoveries of Advanced Technology in Ancient Civilizations, N. Y.  1977

Nweeya, Samuel K. Persia, The Land of the Magi or The Home of the Wise Man, Philadelphia 1910

Perry, Walter Scott, Egypt, The Land of the Temple Builders, New York 1898

Petrie, W. M. F., Dendereh 1898, Seventeenth Memoir of The Egyptian Exploration Fund, London 1900, The Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt, London 1909

Poulter, J. D., An Early History of Electricity Supply, London 1986

Putnam, George R., Lighthouses and Lightships of the United States, N.Y. 1917; Sentinel of the Coasts, The Log of a Lighthouse Engineer, New York 1937

Rawlinson, George, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy or the Geography, History, and Antiquities of the Sassanian or New Persian Empire, Volumes 1 & 2, New York 1870, The Sixth Great Oriental Monarch, or the Geography, History, and Antiquities of Parthia, New York 1872

Ray, Acharya P. C., History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry, a 2004 reprint of his early twentieth-century works

Renard, Léon, Les Phares (The Lighthouses), a reprint, Saint-Malo, France 1990

Remsburg, John E., The Bible, I. Authenticity, II. Credibility, III. Morality, New York 1901

Romer, John & Elizabeth, The Seven Wonders of the World, New York 1995

Ruhl, Arthur, etc., The Story of the Great War, 6 volumes, New York 1917

Salvadori, Mario, The Strength of Architecture, Why Buildings Stand Up, New York 1990

Sayce. A. H., The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, London 1894

Singer, Charles, etc. editors, A History of Technology, Vol. II, London 1956

Slingo, M. & Others, The Cyclopaedia of Electrical Engineering containing a History of the Discovery and Application of Electricity, Volume 1, Philadelphia 1892

Stevenson, David Alan, The World’s Lighthouses Before1820 (a reprint), New York 2002

Talbot, Frederick A., Lightships and Lighthouses, London 1913, All About Inventions and Discoveries, New York 1916

Temple, Robert, The Crystal Sun, Rediscovering a Lost Technology of the Ancient World, London 2000

Thorndike, Lynn, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Vol. 1, New York 1923

Tomas, Andrew, We are not the First, London 1971

Van Horne, J. H., Modern Electro Plating, Chicago 1897

Walmsley, R. Mullineux, Electricity in the Service of Man, Volume I, London 1911

Watters, Thomas, On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in India, AD 629—645, a 1905 reprint, New Delhi 1996

Weigall, Arthur, A Guide to the Antiquities of Egypt, London 1910

Whitman, Walter G. & Peck, A. P., Whitman-Peck Physics, New York 1946

Wilkinson, Sir J. Gardner, A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, reprint, 2 vols., N. Y. 1988

Woodcroft, Bennet, The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, London 1851


ARTICLES, PERIODICALS, PAMPHLETS, AND EXTRACTED REPRINTS


A Shocking Discovery, by W. F. M. Gray, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, September 1963. Vol. 110 No. 9

A Survey of the Chemistry of Assyria in the Seventh Century B.C., by Thompson, R. Campbell, a reprinted extract from Ambix, Vol. II, No. 1, June 1938

An Electric Battery 2,000 Years Ago, by Willy Ley, Astounding magazine, March 1939

Beacons of the Sea, Lighting the Coasts of the United States, by Putnam, George, in Vol. XXIV, No. 1 of The National Geographic Magazine, Washington, January 1913

Commercial Uses for Searchlights, General Electric Company, November 1919

Edinburgh Meeting Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, August 1887

Electricity Generation or Magic? The analysis of an Unusual Group of Finds from Mesopotamia by Emmerich Paszthory, The University of Pennsylvania’s MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, Volume 6, 1989

Evidence of the Use of Primitive Batteries in Antiquity, Proceedings of the Symposium on Selected Topics in the History of Electrochemistry, George Dubpernell, Princeton, New Jersey, 1978

First Biennial Supplement to Johnson’s New Universal Cyclopaedia, a Scientific and Popular Treasure of Useful Knowledge by Alvin J. Johnson, New York 1879

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, November 1854, August 1870, October 1870, and February 1875

Harper’s Weekly, January 14, 1882, February 25, 1888, May 18, 1895, New York

Helios on the Pharos, Goodchild, R. G., Antiquaries Journal reprint, Vol. XLI, 3 & 4, July-Oct. 1961

Historically Famous Lighthouses, U.S. Coast Guard, CG-232, Washington, D.C. 1972

La Réparation d’une Statuette Antique par l’électrolyse (The Reparation of an Ancient Statue by Electrolysis), by Dr. A. Gradenwitz, La Science et la Vie, Paris,  April 1927

Les Phares Antiques (The Ancient Lighthouses), Bedon, Robert, Archeologia—No. 231, Janvier 1988

Les séismes à Alexandrie et la destruction du phare (The Earthquakes at Alexandria and the Destruction of the Lighthouse), Taher, Moustafa A., in Études alexandrines 3–1998 Alexandrie médiévale 1, Edited by Christian Décobert and Jean-Yves Empereur, published by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale

Lighthouse Illuminants (South Foreland Experiments), London 1890

Light-house Illumination, Reports on the U.S. Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 1867, Vol. III, Chap. XIII—Pages 415—432, Washington 1869

Military Electric Lighting, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, Volume II, 1915

Notes sur l’architecture musulmane d’Alexandrie (Notes on the Mussulman Architecture of Alexandria), Abouseif, Doris-Behrens, Études alexandrines 3, 1998

Operation, Adjustment, and Care of the General Electric 24-Inch High-Powered Searchlight Form “AA”, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington 1919

Scientific American, July 21, 1888, January 29, 1898 and June 12, 1915 New York

Sur quelques représentations nouvelles du phare d’Alexandrie, (On Some New Representations of the Alexandrian Lighthouse), Picard, Charles, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Paris. LXXVI-1952-1

The Ancient Egyptians used Electricity by Ivan T. Sanderson, Fate Magazine, September 1975

The Electric Light, by Professor John Tyndall The Popular Science Monthly, March 1879

The Elements of Khujut Rabu’a and Ctesiphon, by Willy Ley, Galaxy, December 1954

The Enigmatic ‘Battery of Baghdad’ by Gerhard Eggert, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 20, No. 3,  May/June 1996

The Pharos of Alexandria, Summary of an Essay in Spanish by Don Miguel de Asin, Communicated by the Duke of Alba, From the Proceedings of the British Academy, London 1933

The Purpose of the Parthian Galvanic Cells:  A First-Century A.D. Electric Battery used for Analgesia by Paul T. Keyser, The University of Chicago’s Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 52, Number 2, April 1993

The Washington National Monument, by Charles E. Greene, Science, Vol. V, No. 107, February 20, 1885 N. Y.


ARAB  WRITERS


Al-Bakri, Une Description Arabe Inédite du Phare d’Alexandrie (An Unpublished Arab Description of the Lighthouse of Alexdandria), É. Lévi Provençal, translator, Extract from Mémoires de l’Institut Francais, Cairo 1935

El-Edrisis (Idrisi), Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, (Description of Africa and Spain) translated from the Arabic by Rheinhart P.A. Dozy and Michael J. de Goeje, Amsterdam 1969

Ibn Battuta,, Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, H. A. R. Gibb, translator, a reprint, Delhi (1929) 1998

Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn JubayrR. J. C. Broadhurst—translator, London 1952

Maqrizi,  A History of the Ayyūbid Sultans of Egypt, Translated from the Arabic of al-Maqrīzī with Introduction and  Notes by  R. J. C. Broadhurst—translator, Boston 1980


ANCIENT AUTHORS


Achilles Tatius, The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon, S. Gaselee, translator, Loeb, London 1917

AeschylusThe Agamemnon of Aeschylus, translated by Gilbert Murray, New York 1920

Ammianus Marcellinus, translated by John C. Rolfe, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library, London 1936

Arculfus, The Pilgrimage of Arculfus in the Holy Land (About the Year A. D. 670), James R. MacPherson—translator, Vol. III, The Library of the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society (We also used Vol. VI). London 1895 (1894)

Augustine, Saint, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, Henry Bettenson, translator, a reprint 1972

Caesar, Julius, Cæsar’s Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil War with the Supplementary Books attributed to Hirtius; including the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars, W. A. McDevitte & W. S. Bohn—translator, N. Y. 1895

Diodorus Siculus, translated by Russel M. Geer, Volume IX, Loeb Classical Library, London 1947

Hero [Heron] of Alexandria,  The works of,  translated by Bennet Woodcroft, London 1851

Josephus, The Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston, First published in 1736

Julian, The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 1, W. C. Wright, translator, Loeb Classical Library, London 1913

Lucan, The Civil War, translated by J. D. Duff, Loeb Classical Library, London 1928

Lucian, Lucian, Harmon, A. M.—translator, Volume IV, N.Y. 1925; Volume VI, K. Kilburn—translator, Loeb, London 1959

Marcellinus, Ammianus,  Vol. II, J. C. Rolfe, translator, Loeb Class. Library, London 1986

Philo, The works of, a common reprint of C. D. Yonge’s translation

Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, F. C. Conybeare, translator, 2 vols. Loeb Class. Libr., London 1917

Pliny, Natural History, Vols. I & IX, H. Rackham—translator, Loeb, London 1952 and Vol. X, D. E. Eichholz—translator, Loeb Classical Library, London 1962

Plutarch, Moralia, Vols. V and XII, F. C. Babbitt. H. Cherniss and W. C. Helmbold—translators, Loeb, London 1957

Procopius, Buildings, Vol. VII, H. B. Dewing—translator, Loeb Classical Library, London 1940

Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, Vol. III, H. C. Hamilton, & W. Falconer—trans, Bohn’s Classical Library, London 1906

Vitruvius, The Books on Architecture, Morris Hicky Morgan—translator, a Dover reprint, New York (1914) 1960 


just for you!

June 26, 2008