The Egyptian temple carving that looks like a giant lightbulb

The hieroglyphs around it describe a gold statue four palms tall, and no dig at Dendera has ever found a glass shard or filament.

Dendera light — Olaf Tausch / CC BY 3.0 (via Wikipedia)

Carved into the Hathor temple at Dendera in Egypt is a relief that looks a great deal like a lightbulb: an oval bubble with a snake curling inside it, held up by a pillar. A fringe theory holds that this is evidence of ancient Egyptian electric lighting, based on the resemblance to incandescent bulb…