Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients

by David Hatcher Childress

An Egyptian temple flame.

  The relief at the Temple of Hathor at Dendera.

  The temple is richly decorated with inscriptions and hieroglyphics. Probably most interesting to me was an incised petroglyph in the room designated No. XVII that depicts a strikingly unusual scene with what appear to be electrical objects. The famous British scientist Ivan T. Sanderson discusses this petroglyph and ancient Egyptian electricity in his book Investigating the Unexplained.8 In the petroglyph, attendants are holding two “electric lamps” supported by “Djed” pillars and connected via cables to a box. Djed columns are interesting, as they are usually associated with Osiris. They are said to represent the column in which he was found at Byblos in Lebanon by Isis. The Djed columns are explained as insulators, though they are probably electrical generating devices themselves due to the odd “condenser” design at the top of the columns. An electrical engineer named Alfred Bielek explained the petroglyph to Sanderson as depicting some sort of projector with the cables being a bundle of many multi-purpose conductors, rather than a single high-voltage cable.

  Another depiction from an 18th dynasty papyrus scroll shows “sacred baboons” and priests worshipping a Djed column with an ankh with hands holding up an orb. Sanderson likens the object to static generators such as a Van de Graaff generator or Wimshurst generator. Sanderson had Michael R. Freedman, an electrical engineer, draw up plans for his version of a Djed-column static-electricity generator. They indeed looked very similar to the modern Van de Graaff generator found in many high school science laboratories.

  In such a device, static electricity builds up in the orb, and, says Freedman, “...what better ‘toy’ for an Egyptian priest of ancient times? ...such an instrument could be used to control both the Pharaoh and fellahin (peasant), simply by illustrating, most graphically, the powers of the gods; of which, of course, only the priests knew the real secrets. Merely by placing a metal rod or metal-coated stave in the general vicinity of the sphere, said priest could produce a most wondrous display, with electric arcs and loud crashes. Even with nothing more elaborate than a ring on his finger, a priest could point to the ’life-symbol,‘ be struck by a great bolt of lightning, but remain alive and no worse for wear, thus illustrating the omnipotent powers of the gods—not to mention himself—in preserving life for the faithful.” 8

  Though the device may have been some exotic, but simple, static generator, it might also have been a self-generating electric light tower and bulb. A glowing electric ball in the center of an ornate temple would have been an impressive sight. Did the Egyptians use electric lighting? It would seem so!

  Part of the evidence for ancient Egyptian electrics is the mystery of why tombs and underground passages are highly painted and decorated, yet there is no smoke residue or evidence of torches on the ceilings! It is usually assumed that the artists and workers would have to have worked by torchlight, just as early Egyptologists did in the 1800s. However, no smoke is found on the tombs. One ingenious theory was that the passageways and chambers were lit by series of mirrors, bringing sunlight from the entrance. However, many tombs are far too elaborate, with deep and twisting turns, for this to work.

  Ark of the Covenant—Electrified?

  It is my belief that the famous Biblical Ark of the Covenant was in part an ancient electrical device that was Egyptian in origin. Furthermore, it may have come out of the Great Pyramid, or the underground tunnels that have recently been discovered beneath the Giza Plateau. Graham Hancock in his bestselling 1992 book The Sign and the Seal162says that the nested sarcophagi of the young Pharaoh Tutankhamen was apparently a similar type of box as that described as the Ark of the Covenant. According to Hancock, this sort of special construction for a box was relatively common in ancient Egypt. He too is a believer in Egyptian electrics and other special knowledge left over from ancient civilizations.

  Djed column with orb.

  Just what was the Ark of the Covenant, anyway? The Ark of the Covenant first appears in the story of the Exodus and approximately 200 other times in the Old Testament. Moses is said to have symbolically placed a copy of the Ten Commandments inside the Ark, which was a nesting of three boxes one inside the other. Descriptions of the Ark in the Bible are brief and scanty, but it seems that the box, or “Ark” was something between four and five feet long and two to three feet in both breadth and width. The three boxes were a sandwiching of gold, a conducting metal, and acacia wood, a non-conductor. There were dangers in handling the ark, which was generally done by the Levites who were said to have worn protective clothing. The Bible reports one tragedy that happened when the Ark was touched incorrectly.

  In II Samuel, Chapter 6, the ark is being transported by ox cart. Apparently this gave the ark an unsteady ride and as the Bible says, “And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it.

  And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah: and God Smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.“

  Uzzah was immediately stunned into death by the force that was part of the ark! This is probably quite true, because such a sandwiching of a conductor and a non-conductor creates what is known as an electrical condenser. A condenser such as the Ark would accumulate static electricity over a period of days (or years) until it was suddenly discharged onto a person, or grounded by means of a conductor, like a wire or metal rod touching the ground. If the Ark had not been grounded for some long period of time, the electrical charge built up in it could give a very nasty and fatal shock to someone who touched it. If the shock itself was not fatal, then the surprise of the shock could well be. After the Ark had been discharged, however, it would be quite safe to touch as many of the Temple Priests would demonstrate.

  Another part of the Ark of the Covenant was a golden statue, whose importance is often missed. Indeed, in esoteric literature, it is the most significant part of the Ark. It is described in the Bible as the “Holy of Holies.” It was a solid gold statue of two cherubim (angels) facing each other, their wing tips touching above them. They hold between them a shallow dish with their outstretched arms. This was known as the “Mercy Seat.”

  It is upon this Mercy Seat that an esoteric flame called in Hebrew the “Shekinah Glory” rests. The Shekinah Glory is supposedly a kind of “spirit fire” which was maintained from a distance, originally by Moses and later by an Adept of the Temple. If the person viewing the Holy of Holies was able to detect the Shekinah Glory, that showed psychic talent, as it could only be perceived by a person with clairvoyant ability.

  This statue, along with the Ark, is suddenly referred to in the Biblical book of Exodus, and it is usually believed that the Hebrews manufactured them while they were out in the desert. This seems unlikely, especially the manufacturing of the solid gold statue of the angels. Rather, it is more likely that the Holy of Holies, and the Ark, were relics from an earlier time, and were being taken out of Egypt by the fleeing Israelites. Indeed, it is quite possible that for this very reason the Egyptian army decided to pursue the fleeing Israelites, even after they had given them permission to depart.

  According to an obscure esoteric order known as The Lemurian Fellowship, the Holy of Holies was a statue created many tens of thousands of years ago on the lost continent of the Pacific generally known as Mu or sometimes Lemuria (a term coined by geologists in the late 19th century). The statue was created to test a person’s clairvoyant ability, which was shown by whether they could see the Shekinah Glory on the Mercy Seat. Persons of sufficient psychic ability were then offered the chance to take citizenship training and join the Commonwealth of Mukulia, the name which The Lemurian Fellowship attributes to this civilization which reportedly covered the entire Pacific Basin, including Australia (for more information on the belief that the Holy of Holies is from Mu/Lemuria, see my book Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria&the Pacific11). This lost continent, a controversial subject among geologists and mys-tics, then reportedly sank in a
cataclysmic pole shift circa 22000 BC.1,2

  The Ark of the Covenant at the fall of Jericho.

  According to The Lemurian Fellowship, with the downfall of the Pacific civilization, the Holy of Holies and plans for rebuilding the Tabernacle were removed to Atlantis where they were kept in a gigantic pyramidal building called the Incalathon, which was sort of the government headquarters and museum at the same time. Just prior to the supposed destruction of Atlantis circa 10000 BC, the Holy of Holies was taken to Egypt, which was part of the Osirian Empire at that time.2 According to The Ultimate Frontier,12the relic was first kept in the Temple of Isis and then secreted in the large stone crypt which occupies the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid at Giza. For 3,400 years it remained there, until the birth of Moses.

  The box, or Ark, within which the Holy of Holies was kept, was probably constructed in Egypt. Electricity was used by the Egyptians, as evidenced by electroplated gold objects, electrical lighting reportedly being used in the temples, and the use of the Djed column as an electrical generator. Because many persons still knew the significance of the gold statue, it was important that the Holy of Holies and the Ark be kept away from the evil Amon priests who fostered mummification in Egypt and controlled the country for thousands of years. Therefore, secret Mystery Schools operated in Egypt that kept the ancient traditions of Atlantis and Mu alive. The Holy of Holies and possibly the Ark were sealed in the so-called King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, and the entrance to the inside was a carefully guarded secret, known only to a select few.

  Is it possible that the Biblical Ark of the Covenant was at one time kept in the Isis Temple at Hathor, and could the underground crypt depict a portion of the electrical system that was used in the ancient temples?

  Crystal Lenses, Solar Mirrors and Luminous Disks

  Though there may be some doubt amongst the more conservative archaeologists that ancient societies like the Egyptians’ had electricity, they all agree that ancient societies had relatively sophisticated glass technology as well as glass and crystal lenses. As we have seen, the ancient arts of glass smelting and metallurgy go back to the very dim mists of human civilization.

  An Assyrian crystal lens from 700 BC.

  The British researcher Harold T. Wilkins mentions luminous disks in his 1952 book Secret Cities of Old South America.19 Says Wilkins, “The Moslem Qu-ran, or Koran, says that old Noah planted an ebony tree and cut planks from it to make his great deluge ship, which is a not unlikely thing. We have a glimpse of some knowledge of physics and electro- or chemi luminescence possessed by this old Atlantean Noah. The Qu-ran says he placed on the walls of the Ark two luminous discs to make (or mark) day and night.”

  A fascinating book on the use of ancient magnifying lenses is the 1953 book The Ancient Secret: Fire from the Sun by Flavia Anderson.21 This is one of my favorite books on ancient technology, and Ms. Anderson is to be commended for having written this wonderful piece. Anderson says that the Grail legends are based on the existence of ancient lenses made of ground rock crystal that were once used in ancient ceremonies in the great temples of Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.

  The lenses were set in elaborate supportive stands made of precious metals, and usually they had other precious gems set around the central lens. This central lens was an important sacred relic, yet it was no more than any common magnifying glass used today. These lenses were suspended in a device known as a monstrance. A monstrance (Anderson de picts a Spanish monstrance from the 16th century in her book) used screws to hold a rock crystal or glass lens into place on the silver/copper/ gold stand. Anderson suggests that candles were lit with these lenses and they were used in religious ceremonies. Later they were used to develop telescopes, something that the Egyptians and others had known about earlier.

  Anderson shows that crystal lenses were mounted in this manner by the Babylonians in what are termed “Grail Trees.” The Grail Tree appears to be a lens held in the center of metal stand looking like a combination of a tree and the sun. Beside the Grail Tree, in her depiction, is a “Solar-hero in conflict with an Eagle-headed monster.” She also shows how the Thummin or Urim of the Bible was a crystal set in a metal stand and words such as “Tetragrammaton” and “Elohim” were engraved in the stand, in either Latin or Hebrew letters.

  Anderson says that these crystal lenses were extremely valuable and often the symbol of nobility or authority. She gives several examples of crystal lenses being set in wonderful jewelry. Charlemagne, for instance, had a special crystal talisman. Says Anderson, “At Denderah in Egypt there is a carving of Pharaoh presenting a wonderful necklace to the goddess Hathor on the face of the temple chapel, known as the Hirth Chamber’ (where it was probable that the rebirth of the sun was celebrated yearly). The mysterious Arthurian queen in the Prose Percival whose hand points to her necklace and its pendant ‘star,’ which it is claimed concerns the mystery of the Grail, could therefore be pointing to a crystal talisman such as that of Charlemagne....That the culture of Egypt and the Near East spread in some unknown fashion to Mexico and Peru has long been a supposition... The Spaniards recorded on their arrival in Peru that the heathen priests were accustomed to light their sacred fires from the sun’s rays by means of a concave cup set in a metal bracelet.”21

  The Thummim or Urim was a crystal set in precious metals.

  Anderson says that the legend of the phoenix bird, rising from the ashes of the fire that consumes it, may be based on certain rituals that used a magnifying crystal. The lens was used to focus the sun on some dry straw or other tinder and a trained bird then played in the fire. Anderson demonstrates in her book that a trained bird, a rook in this case, can play with fire in this manner and not be burnt or harmed in any way.

  While crystal and glass lenses were apparently used by the ancients to focus the sun and light fires (often in religious ceremonies), this was probably a secondary technology to actual electric lights or other electrical devices such as Van de Graaff generators.

  There are several famous stories from ancient literature that speak of giant lenses or mirrors that were used in battle. The most interesting of these stories is that of the Greeks using a fearsome ‘solar mirror,’ which Archimedes had cooked up in Syracuse in 212-215 BC, to incinerate the invading Roman fleet. He allegedly focused this giant solar mirror on the ships of the Roman fleet and set them on fire! Archimedes was credited with naval the victory, though the Romans eventually got the better of the Greeks in the long run.

  To reenact and prove the Syracuse event, Tonnis Sakkas, an Athenian engineer, solar-focused seventy copper-backed mirrors, each measuring 90 cm. x 150 cm., and successfully set fire to a canoe in Skaramanga port at a distance of sixty meters.40

  Robin Collins, in his book Laser Beams from Star Cities, says that old legends from China refer to the terrible ‘yin-yang’e mirror used by warring supermen to burn the enemy. Another instrument of war possibly utilized by the ancients may have been immense electromagnets. Collins mentions that the Arabian Nights stories refer to giant magnets which withdrew the nails of ships as a means of conquering the enemy.40

  Perseus possessed a magical helmet which, when placed upon his head, instantly rendered him invisible. Robin Collins asks, “Was the ‘helmet’ an electronic device to diffract or deflect light rays, thereby acting as a protective agent? The ’magic mist’ produced by the Druids to render themselves invisible, may have been linked with light diffraction devices.”40

  Says Collins, “It is not technically impossible for the solar mirrors to have reflected light and heat (and electromagnetic?) radiation from a central radiant core, e.g., a plasma radiation energy source positioned in the center of a crystalline/metallic alloyed mirror, and held by a magnetic field. Plastic jelly plasma photo-energy street lights are now experimental in the USSR, while in 1964 Columbia University scientists developed a ‘free floating’ plasma (ionized gas) only a few centimeters long which emitted heat radiation of +20,0000C., and a brightness three times more
intense than the previous brightest artificial light source known to Man. The plasma was as bright, or brighter than the Sun! So, perhaps there is more than a grain of truth in the antiquated legends of the solar mirror engines of destruction?”40

  Many of the ancient tales of magic mirrors and “fire from heaven” may be stories of exceptionally advanced technology. For instance, crystals could be grown with phosphorescent or luminescent chemicals that would allow them to absorb solar energy during the day and be a glowing light of hard stone at night. Perhaps a remote jungle village in New Guinea still has the ancient street lights, made of “plastic jelly plasma photo-energy” that just come on, night after night, as they have for thousands of years. This should give the modern battery and electric companies a run for their money!

  A Bablylonian “Grail Tree.”

  Components of the Baghdad Battery.

  Top: Various aspects of Horus with a winged disk.

  Bottom: Priestesses with orbs over their heads—an electric light or crystal lens, rather than the sun?

  Top: Depiction of Djed columns with orbs at the top. Electrical devices?

  Bottom: Depicitions of a winged Isis with an orb over her head.

  Top: The relief at the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, showing priests carrying devices attached to a braided cable to an altar.