“The only metal these people had to work with was copper and they only had the simplest of tools. Ghyr Sahih of the La ‘Usdiquh Museum offers an explanation of how this could have occurred: A Fortunate Discoveryīy inlaying this boron rich obsidian stone with copper wires and exposing it to sunlight a simple solar cell could be created, but for it to work one side would first need to be infused with phosphorus. It turns out this particular obsidian is rich in naturally occurring boron, an element used in silicon solar cell manufacture today. It was previously known that all obsidian found in Old Kingdom sites came from one particular location near Timna on the Sinai Peninsula, a considerable distance from the civilization of the Nile Valley but until now it wasn’t known why. It was highly valued and widely traded in the ancient world for use as jewellery and because it could be used to make flakes with sharp cutting edges. Obsidian is a dark volcanic glass mostly made of silicon. “This means the old Kingdom of Egypt had a basic solar cell over 4,500 years before the common age and over 600 years before their first use of the wheel.” The Right Kind Of Obsidian We took a piece already in our collection with the copper lines intact and discovered that, when placed in sunlight, it generated a small but measurable current.” “One of my students thought, if the larger obsidian shards had been inlaid with copper it would resemble the fine wiring on the solar panels his family uses to cope with Cairo’s blackouts. On this breakthrough, Professor Kumar says: One suggestion was they were used as decoration in a temple, but one team member had a different idea that led to a shocking discovery. But these pieces were much too large for that. Similar, smaller pieces of obsidian with intact inlaid copper had been found in the past, but were believed to be jewellery – a type of Ancient Egyptian bling. They were etched on both sides with shallow grooves containing traces of copper. The stones were dated to the Old Kingdom of Egypt, which ruled the Nile Valley from 4,706 to 4,201 years ago. They were called in to investigate after pieces of etched obsidian stone were found when ground was broken for a new shopping complex, only hundreds of metres from the great pyramids. The team that made the discovery was led by Professor Anna Kumar of Jones University. While modern solar panels are over 100 times as efficient, power from these very basic cells would have been sufficient for electroplating and potentially other uses. Using only simple tools, they were able to use obsidian - a type of volcanic glass composed mostly of silicon - with high levels of naturally occurring boron to construct simple solar cells using hand drawn copper wire. But thanks to literally groundbreaking research, it’s now known ancient Egyptians had access to a primitive form of solar power. While it has been known since the 1930s that simple chemical batteries were used for gold electroplating in Egypt thousands of years ago, until now it was thought these could only have been recharged by replacing the chemicals and copper rods inside. (Image: The Irish Times)Ī set of papers published in the International Journal of Antiquity last month has revealed ancient Egyptians may have had access to a technology that, in our modern world, has only taken off over the last few decades. Copper filled grooves in a piece of ancient Egyptian obsidian.
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