Should have also said controversial. I was thinking of the Baghdad battery and stories of ancient insular priesthoods and mystery cults and their “magic.” But I did remember that. It’s a lotus but Egyptians also stylized everything.

The non-woowoo proposals I’ve read call for very primitive apparati that would have been possible with metallurgy of the time. If some, I dunno, bored priests and scribes over thousands of years figured out some neat tricks.