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The Mysterious
Dendara Lamp

Klaus Deistung
The dark crypts beneath the Hathor Temple at Dendera harbor one of the biggest historical puz-
zles of all time: images that look like electric lights. Engineer Klaus Deistung has conducted new
experiments under laboratory conditions and reports his results in this Legendary Times exclu-
sive.
In the subterranean crypts of Dendera, which are accessed directly beneath the Egyptian shrine to the goddess
Hathor, unique reliefs feature bubble-shaped structures that look like oversized “light bulbs” and contain undulat-
ing snakes emerging from a stylized lotus blossom. They are supported by djed pillars, a symbol for “power.” In
1976, when Danish electrical engineer Tons Brunés began wondering whether these unique images might possibly
be representations of an ancient Egyptian electrotechnical “invention,” he likely never suspected that Viennese en-
gineer Walter Garn and authors Peter Krassa and Reinhard Habeck would manage to create two work-ing replicas
of this ancient technology by 1980. Nor was he likely to have predicted that a quarter century after his bold idea,
a huge model of this Dendera “light bulb” would be on display at the Mystery Park in the heart of Switzerland.
Energy for Dendera
Anyone who has ever stood in front of that impressive structure in the Mystery Park’s Egyptian pavilion will surely
remember how the huge light bulb slowly begins to glow as soon as energy is supplied from four battery jars. Of
course, this con guration only symbolically represents how a lamp could be operated using those four galvanic
elements. The designers of the exhibit, howev-er, were inspired by the battery-like elements discovered in archaeo-
logical excavations near Baghdad [1], which originated from the Parthian period.
Yet when I look at this con guration through the eyes of an engineer, I must conclude that this design is not tech-
nically feasible. Why not? According to measurements to date, a “Baghdad battery” generates about 0.5 volts. To
produce a fairly usable light, a 12-volt battery would be required. So the four batteries would not be enough—24
of them would be needed. Voltage is just one part of the story, however; without the appropriate current, no device
will operate, and certainly not for hours at a time.
As size increases, so does the active surface and the current draw. In the literature on the “Baghdad battery,” I found
current values less than 1 mA, which really is technically insigni cant. Whether the Baghdad battery is capable of
more might be demonstrated by a competition at the RWTH Aachen University, which challenged students to rep-
licate the battery and use it for galvanization. Modern research eff orts enable us to draw over fi ve times the capacity
from a standard AA battery, for example, than was possible 15 years ago, at over 2500 mAh for now. So it might be
possible, with our new insights, to also achieve greater current values in the gal-vanic elements from the Parthian
period. But the research is still underway. It doesn’t look like we can expect any revolutionary breakthroughs—or
maybe these experiments will surprise us with something new aft er all.
Today’s batteries (primary cells that release energy aft er assembly) and rechargeable batteries (secondary cells that
release energy only aft er charging) have reached good performance levels. Th e Baghdad battery is most compara-
ble to a zinc-carbon battery, as both are primary cells. Th e principle of the zinc-carbon cell has not changed since
36 Legendary Times Magazine Vol. 11, No. 3 & 4 of 4 Vol. 11, No. 1 & 2 of 4 Legvendary Times Magazine 37