Case file · High strangeness
Dendera 'light bulb' reliefs
Reliefs in a crypt of the Hathor temple at Dendera show snakes rising from lotus flowers inside bulb-shaped forms. In 1982 two Austrian writers argued they depict electric lamps.
1982 CE · 26.14, 32.67 · status: explained
The account
Peter Krassa and Reinhard Habeck's book 'Das Licht der Pharaonen' launched the claim, and fringe engineers built working 'Dendera lamps'.
The sceptical view
The accompanying texts describe the scene in mythological terms: the snake as the sun god emerging from a lotus, with a djed pillar. Egyptologists find no wiring, glass or soot-free evidence pointing to electric light.