Customer Reviews

The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting

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"The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting" is quite intriguing, but it is not what it is advertised to be. Mr. Radka, the titular author, added few paragraphs of his own, but merely reprinted a work that appears to have been done about a hundred years ago, back when electric lights were "cutting edge technology."

The pictures, and even the type fonts, are from the early 1900's. The celebrated "footnotes" are just that: mere footnotes with no bibliographical worth at all.

In this way, it is a very disappointing piece of reading, for those who want to seriously investigate the possibility that the ancients possessed primitive electrical lights.

However, it is very fascinating in its elucidation of primitive batteries that have been found, and in its correlation between electical "arc" lights and Egyptian hieroglyphics that seem to portray them. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to verify if these hieroglyphics are actual or fabrications.

Mr. Radka, or some scholar, should reissue this book with genuine footnotes that verify its many intriguing assertions. If it could be proven that the ancients enjoyed some form of electrical lighting, it would completly revamp our understanding of the cultures of ancient Egypt and the Middle East.

With his heavily illustrated book that explores the possibility that ancient civilizations had harnessed the power of electricity, author Larry Radka may just change your mind. With a library of more than 5,000 books at his disposal, his research displays a multitude of examples where the ancients used batteries, telescopes, mirror weapons, as well as carbon arc lighting. He also presents evidence that several ancient structures, such as the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria, was powered by carbon arc lights and battery jars. In addition, Radka, a retired broadcast engineer, also suggests that ancient India, the Babylonians, Sumerians, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Persians, Sassanians, and Assyrians used electricity to illuminate their temples, tombs, fortresses, and palaces.
??Radka also provides strong evidence derived from cuneiform and hieroglyphic tablets that seemingly proves that the ancients had the materials necessary (such as copper, lead, iron, zinc, glass, sal ammoniac, and sulfuric acid) to create primary and secondary electric cells.
??Anyone with even a passing interest in ancient technology, electricity, or electrical engineering should purchase a copy of this fascinating book. Illustrations and historical testimony are numerous and the erudite level of research in this fascinating tome establishes a foundation of acumen rarely achieved by previous scholars.
--www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Painstakingly compiled and deftly edited by Larry Brian Radka, The Electric Mirror On The Pharos Lighthouse And Other Ancient Lighting offers an original, informative, and profusely illustrated in-depth study of the incredible lighthouse constructed by Sostras of Cnidos, as well as a serving as a complete reference to a multitude of many other outstanding electrical lighting accomplishments down through history. Guiding readers through a thoroughly documented history of lighting and towers ranging from the Eiffel Tower and its search lights, to the remarkable Washington Monument (the worlds tallest masonry structure unsupported by steel), The Electric Mirror On The Pharos Lighthouse And Other Ancient Lighting provides readers with an engaging and unique compendium of specialized information. The Electric Mirror On The Pharos Lighthouse And Other Ancient Lighting is very strongly recommended reading, both for its thoughtful analysis and its concise presentation focused upon a history of previously little known facts about the creation and use of lighthouses and lighted towers.

ANCIENT ELECTRICIANS

By pharos, Section Reviews, Posted on Sun May 21, 2006 at 11:24:58 PM PST


SYNOPSIS of The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting. This book aims to prove that the ancients used electricity to light up their temples, tombs, lighthouses, fortresses, palaces, cities and other edifices and critical areas.


This book aims to prove, through a comprehensive layout of ancient coins, artifacts, monuments, and literature, that the ancients used electricity to light up their temples, tombs, lighthouses, fortresses, palaces, cities and other edifices and critical areas.

No other work on the subject documents as much ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Hebrew, Assyrian, Indian, Greek, Roman, Parthian, Persian, and Sassanian as well as medieval evidence of this fact. Furthermore, the work recalls interesting details and descriptions (some of which have never before been translated into English) of the ancient Alexandrian Pharos Lighthouse and its reflective telescope and electric beacon.

The book presents easily readable explanation of carbon arc lights and a history of their use in nineteenth and twentieth-century searchlights (electric mirrors) and lighthouses. Its numerous illustrations, explanations, and historical testimony (from the horses' mouths) set a firm foundation for the reader to better understand the ancient advancements in electricity.

The editor (Larry Radka) has carefully laid out the ancient and modern illustrations (often in a comparative manner) on the appropriate pages that match up well with the text. Although this was time-consuming it means readers are not distracted by having to leap back and forth between the text and a bunch of pictures stuck in various parts of the book.

The ancient electric cells (batteries) found in Iraq in the 1930s and the evidence of ancient electroplating serve as a basis for the added proofs of the use of ancient electricity. From there, Radka presents illustrations of numerous artifacts and monuments that clearly demonstrate the use of ancient electric mirrors or searchlights. He also presents, what he describes as, strong evidence from cuneiform tablets and other sources that the ancients had all the materials (like copper, lead, iron, zinc, glass, sal ammoniac, sulfuric acid, etc.) at hand to make powerful primary and secondary electric cells. When we couple this to other ancient testimony of the use of extremely bright lights illuminating large areas, the only conclusion we can come to is that they had to have been powered by electricity.

The great Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson pointed out that the ancient Egyptian "paintings offer few representations of lamps, torches, or any other kind of light." Why--when they illustrate almost every other ancient Egyptian article? It is because people are not looking for ancient electric lights so they simply do not recognize them!

The Electric Mirror is published by Einhorn Press, 1314 Oak Street, Parkersburg, WV 26101, Telephone: (304) 485 3402. You can contact Radka at LarryBrianRadka--AT---hotmail.

In an editorial titled "A Shocking Discovery" in the prestigious Journal of the Electrochemical Society, an electrical engineer for General Electric, Willard F. M. Gray, declared: "Electric batteries, 2000 years ago!!! Surprised? No need to be, really."
However, this is only part of the story! Larry, a retired Broadcast engineer, brings us the rest in his latest work, which also covers electric lighting in antiquity. His book, with several maps, over 200 high quality illustrations of ancient coins, bas-reliefs, and other hard evidence, along with the testimony of a multitude of ancient and modern authorities, presents a comprehensive history of the subject never before accomplished. His numerous footnotes, a dozen pages of endnotes, an extensive bibliography, photo appendix, and two indexes point to enough evidence to persuade even the most orthodox skeptic that the ancients possessed a vast amount of electrical technology.
"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," wrote Madame H. P. Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled, well over a hundred years ago. "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."