Ancient Technology, Part 2: The Dendera Light Bulb
No soot on the walls. It always happens to me this time of year. Tonight's low temperature where I live in SC is predicted to be 25° F., not including the wind chill that's supposed to be in effect. I mean, sure, there are holidays around every corner, hot cider, Charlie Brown specials and pleasant visits from family and friends. But what should be an otherwise enjoyable time of year is often quite uninspiring through the hassle of always trying to dress warm enough, always waiting for the car to heat up, not wanting to get out of bed until you can feel your toes and, of course, always trying to keep wood burning in the fireplace.
Being from south Florida, I didn't grow up always preparing for weather nor was I taught how to use a fireplace. That's probably why, when I spent my first winter here in Columbia, I created a disaster by trying to light the one in my apartment. From camping as a child I had learned how to build a strong fire, but I didn't know the anatomy of a fireplace. See, there's this little thing called a damper, a valve that closes the flue when the fireplace is not in use. I didn't know it was there so I didn't know I was supposed to open it before lighting the fire. Needless to say, as soon as my apartment began filling up with smoke I knew something wasn't right and was forced to extinguish the fire I made. And, even though it was only lit for a matter of seconds, it took me nearly an hour to air out the smoke that had intruded my living space. Unfortunately, though, even when all the smoke was gone there remained a thin film of dirty, black soot on my walls, doors, appliances, and practically everything I owned. The mess that took a minute to make took me and my wife days to completely wipe clean.
It would be easy to get mad at the fire itself, but this was human error. This was my error. The fire itself didn't do anything wrong. Maybe if I'd grown up with more experience around fires I would have known that the fire was behaving just as fire always has and always will behave. There is proof of this all around the world where primitive man lit torches to illuminate their inhabited caves and crypts. Usually, the longer a family or tribe dwelt in that cave, the longer they lit their torches to enable themselves to see, the thicker the layer of soot is that remains on the walls today. The soot left behind on the walls is data that, when analyzed, modern archaeologists can use to determine when a tribe lived there and how long they lived in that particular area.
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