Continued from my previous post...
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The answer was yes, it could chop the steady DC current of the battery into a pulsing DC square wave.
- Tuning Fork - Spiral Metal Contact - Battery
A good start, but the pulsing DC was not enough to light the plasma bulb. I needed to generate high voltage, somehow.
I then noticed the box or naos on top of the Hathor head of the sistrum/crotalum. I had found many examples of these which depicted a snake in the box/naos.
- Sistrum/Crotalum w/ Snake in Naos
Not just any snake mind you, but a cobra. Humm… I thought, ‘What is a cobra known for?’ – coiling.
What if I added an induction coil to the circuit?
I tested it out and, sure enough, it created a perfect high voltage AC signal that lit the plasma bulb very well - but only while the tuning fork was actively vibrating. The tuning fork was turning out to be a big problem that had to be resolved…
- Tuning Fork - Spiral Metal Contact - Battery - Coil
I eventually discovered that the ‘was’ scepter was not a tuning fork after all. It turned out to be a simple carved wooden staff covered with gold leaf (I had found many examples in the Cairo Museum during my 1997 trip).
- WAS Scepter (wood)
It was still electrically conductive (those covered in gold leaf, that is), but it was not a viable source for chopping or vibrating the DC current. Dead end – show stopper…
I struggled with the problem for many years, until one day (in the summer of 2000), while I was fiddling with an old electromagnetic relay that I had picked up at an electronics junk store, I had another intuitive hit – of course, the solution was obvious, how could I have missed it?
- Old ElectroMagnetic Relay
The sistrum/crotalum was a door bell – an electric buzzer. The spiral contacts (i.e. what I call the clappers) on the sides of the box/naos are most probably made of some ferromagnetic material (like spring steel or a combination of iron and copper bound together).
With all the pieces identified I quickly built and tested a model, which worked really well.
- Sistrum/Crotalum Model
- Sistrum/Crotalum Model w/ Plasma Bulb
No tuning forks to mess with. You just touch the 'was' scepter to the spiral ferromagnetic clapper contact and the plasma bulb lights right up... Great...
I had just one more problem to solve before I was satisfied with the overall solution.
I call this the ‘single wire’ problem.
In looking at the image of the priestess in the chair on the temple walls, I had assumed that the handle of the sistrum/crotalum was electrically connected to the ‘was’ scepter (located in the hand of the priestess in the chair) by a conductive connection made through the floor. Basically, the floor had to be electrically conductive for the circuit to work – hence a single wire must connect the sistrum/crotalum to the ‘was’ scepter.
The problem was, in my original buzzer solution, I needed two wires to get the Solar Disc, on the head of the priestesses, to light (basically, I needed to connect the Solar Disc headdress across the spark gap between the ‘was’ scepter and the ferromagnetic clappers on the sistrum/crotalum) .
But there was no second wire to be found in the images…
The solution turned out to be the counterpoise on the menat necklace (i.e. the bell).
- Menat Necklace w/ Counterpoise
The menat is the large pectoral necklace seen practically everywhere in the images, and the counterpoise is the counter weight that hangs down the back of the priestess and balances the front of the necklace.
The counterpoise turned out to be a second induction coil in the circuit, electrically connected in between the sistrum/crotalum handle (i.e. the battery contact) and the ‘was’ scepter (i.e. the spark gap), and is used to generate the high voltage AC needed by the Solar Disc headdress. If fact, I believe it may turn out to be a tuned resonant L/C circuit – hence the bell.
I made the changes to the circuit and everything came to together nicely…
- Sistrum/Crotalum Model w/ Secondary Coil
When the smoke cleared, the final solution turned out to be a turn of the century High Voltage Kicker Coil (a simple Tesla Coil from the 1800’s)
- High Voltage Kicker Coil Schematic
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Again, once the power source was identified, our attention then turned to the snake tubes...
More on that part of the story in my next post...
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