Isn’t there a theory kicking around that the pyramid tunnels and rooms were lit with reflective devices?
Granted, every time you had to turn a corner you would require another reflective device and the bad part there is, due to refractive capabilities of the reflective devices you lose some of the light strength due to refractive induced losses.
If the reflective devices could be large enough they may have been able to transmit enough light to carry on with the work being done whether it was simply tunneling or painting murals and the like.
Once your eyes are accustomed to the dark it doesn’t take much light to see what you’re doing.

As for the lack of smoky residue at the top of rooms and tunnels being evident, there’s also the problem of oxygen being burned out of the air making the area dangerous to work in.
That rules out a light emitting device that relies on fuel and flame.

Polished stone or metal was the base material used in early mirrors.
Am I correct in that the Egyptians had not reached the bronze age during the era of pyramid construction ?
They had copper, did they not?
Copper will polish up quite well, but it does take considerable upkeep.
I wonder what the light reflective qualities of polished copper would be?
Good enough to light the recesses of the pyramid interior I would guess, but an alloy of copper and gold would perhaps be even better than polished copper.
Copper is commonly alloyed with gold and it retains a distinctively gold color if there’s not too much copper in the alloy.
White gold may have had even better reflective properties.
White gold is alloyed with zinc although I don’t know if zinc would have been smelted in that era.

Some of the earlier glass mirrors had a coating - from what I understand - of tin, mercury and/or lead to create mirrors.
Although where mercury is concerned it may be just a container of liquid mercury and could only be used in a horizontal mode.
Perhaps on m’lady’s dressing table.

The Romans made mirrors by coating flat glass with silver or gold foil.
I’m guessing that the Egyptians didn’t have flat glass and a reflective device could have been made from flat glazed pottery or even a flat construction of wood with silver or gold foil over it.
Accuracy in reflection - as seen in modern mirrors - wouldn’t be required, but there would be plenty of reflective angles to scatter the light if the foil was laid down with some wrinkles , but it would still transmit light down a long hallway.
The Egyptians were craftsmen enough that more than likely they would have no problems in preparing a flat surface for the foil and getting the foil down very flat.

And . . . if you built the wooden backer with a convex surface for the outside mirror you may be able to account for changes in the sun’s angle as the day wore on, but it was probably easier to have a worker altering the mirror angle as required.
The outside mirror could also have been built with a concave surface which would be less prone to lose light as compared to a convex surface.

Polished stone or metal was used in early man-made mirrors
Later on, glass was used in combination with metals like tin, mercury, and lead to create mirrors.

As far as batteries go, home-made ones can be constructed from a lemon, piece of copper wire and piece of aluminum wire.
Not much output, but there is a voltage present.

So if archeologist’s feel that the batteries found from ancient times were used for electroplating, does jewelry from the era of the Pharaohs and Pyramids show evidence of electroplating?

Or would the batteries be used with silver or other reflective material to electroplate glass - if they had it - or perhaps glazed pottery?

My vote on pyramid lighting would be for a reflective foil beaten flat and placed on a wooden or even polished flat stone base.
There was so much money expended on pyramid construction that a gold or silver foil mirror would have been a small part of the expense.

And more than likely the small capacity of ancient batteries used in the electroplating process were for jewelry only.

Then again, a little thinking from an observant person would have several batteries connected in parallel or series, or both - depending on the voltages required and a considerable amount of power could be obtained.

I do know that some electrically astute people will argue the series/parallel connection, but in this case we have banks of batteries connected in parallel for capacity purposes and several banks connected in series for a higher voltage than what could be obtained by having all batteries in parallel.

Dry cell batteries are 1 ½ volts per cell and wet cell batteries are about 2.1 volts per cell.
Wet cell batteries can be a little higher due to the electrolyte used, but 2.1 volts per wet cell is a good figure to use.

As far as ancient batteries not having much capacity, perhaps we’re only seeing early versions of the Baghdad battery and the like.
Mankind takes to new inventions rapidly and it’s not long until improvements are made.

After the battery, capacitors probably weren’t too far down the road, but then you’re entering into Ark of the Covenant territory according to some theories....

I agree with slayer69, I think we dont give past civilizations enough credit. We have proof that they found a battery in Iraq. I bet they had all kinds of technology that we dont know about Or we are just discovering it today.

Maybe a battery but then the Baghdad battery isn't from the ancient world, instead it comes from the end of the classical world.

The ancients had technology, it was just their version of it. Not very high tech but capable of producing a number of clever items. There main problem was a lack of math, the scientific method, repeatablility, a political need, a social need, a long lasting recording mechanism that was cheap and easy to use, poor education systems, a craftmans' cultures vs mass production.

I should also note that in isolated places and times they overcame one or more of these problems but would then loose that advance in the chaos of those times. The Chinese solved a number of these problems but then got done in by a restrictive social and political system, as did many other cultures. It was the West in the 15th century that finally put them all together.

Originally posted by Hanslune
but then the Baghdad battery isn't from the ancient world

OK I rarely argue with you some more info please to back up your statement
I'm open

So just how old is the Bagdad batteries?
whitch is Sumerian B4 Egypt?

The batteries are dated to the Sassanian periof 225-660 AD. A first dating of 250-150 BC was shown to be wrong.

König thought the objects might date to the Parthian period (between 250 BC and AD 224). However according to Dr. St. John Simpson of the Near Eastern department of the British Museum, their original excavation and context were not well recorded (see stratigraphy), so evidence for this date range is very weak. Furthermore, the style of the pottery (see typology) is Sassanid (224-640).

The Baghdad battery - myth or reality?
D. E. Von Handorf.
Plating and Surface Finishing (USA), Vol. 89, No. 5, May 2002, pp. 84-87.