14 History of Luminescence 



talent appear to have lived some five thousand years before Christ, 

 spreading southward into Egypt, Unfortunately, the facts most im- 

 portant for the history of luminescence are lacking. Inquiry among 

 scholars concerning ancient Egyptian,^ and Sumero-Babylonian ^° 

 writings has failed to disclose any certain mention of luminous 

 phenomena by these peoples. The subject no doubt suffers from 

 lack of record rather than lack of observation. 



It is among animals that a knowledge of luminescence is most 

 likely to be found. The firefly, recorded in sacred books of India 

 and China, seems to have been overlooked by religious writers of 

 the Near East. Neither the firefly nor the glowworm is mentioned 

 in the Bible or the Talmud ^^ or the Koran. Perhaps this can be 

 understood in view of the rarity ^- of these luminous beetles in the 

 generally desert regions of the Middle East. The firefly is funda- 

 mentally a moisture loving insect, abundant in the tropics and lush 

 meadowlands of the temperate zone. There is an old English prov- 

 erb having to do with weather lore, " When the glowworm lights 

 her lamp the weather is always damp " that well expresses the habit 

 of these luminous beetles. Another saying, " To see many glow- 

 worms is a sign of a storm," expresses essentially the same idea. 

 Indeed, such observations as these were no doubt part of the folk- 

 lore of many ancient peoples before any thought of the meaning of 

 the light or how a light could be produced by a living insect became 

 a subject for discussion. 



Possible references to luminescence in the Old Testament are all 

 subject to highly speculative interpretation. A case in point is the 

 shining face of Moses, an incident described as follows in the King 

 James version (1611) : " 



And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with 

 the two tables of testimony in his hand. . . . Moses wist not that the 



° Professor Hermann Ranke of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 

 has written me that he is unaware of Egyptian words for firefly or glowworm or any 

 representations of these insects. 



^^ Dr. S. N. Kramer of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, has found 

 nothing on luminescence in Sumerian culture. No mention of fireflies or glowworms 

 is to be found in Die Fauna der alien Mesopotamien, etc. by B. Landsberger assisted 

 by I. Krumbiegel (Abh. d. Sdchsischen Acad. d. Wiss. Philologisch-Histor. Kl. 42, No. 6, 

 1934) , and Dr. Landsberger, of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, has 

 written me in 1951 that no ideogram in the Sumero-Akkadian writing known so far 

 suggests the occurrence of a word for luminous insects of any kind. No luminous 

 animals are mentioned in " The fauna of Ancient Mesopotamia as represented in art," 

 by E. D. Van Buren, Analecta orientalia 18, 1940. 



^^ See L. Lewysohn, Die Zoologie des Talmuds, Frankfurt a M., 1858. 



^^ Fireflies are found in certain parts of Turkey, Syria and Egypt, but they are not 

 common (Coleopterorum catalogus of W. Junk, Lampyridae by E. Olivier, 1910.) See 

 also discussion under " Arab Writers " Chapter II. 



" Exodus 34: 29-30. 



