Electricity From The Past
During the digging and extensive exploration of the ancient ruins near capital of Iraq, Bagdad, a group of workers and archeologists founded seemingly ordinary small vase. It was in 1936. The object was made from the yellow clay and it was coated with some kind of insulation. Both sides were sealed with some strange material, which is the most similar to the bitumen or the asphalt base. Signs of the corrosion were noticeable on the vase body, which indicated the acidic reaction. This discovery was completely stumped scientists because nobody knew what this object was used for.
Power Generators
A few years later, the vase finally got its name- The Baghdad Battery or Parthian Battery. This term is now used as a general name for a group of artifacts, which have been founded in the Khuyut Rabbou, a small village near the Bagdad. It is assumed that these items are made during the first centuries A.D, probably during the Sassanid or the Parthian period.
A couple of years after first discovery, the German scientist and the director of the National Museum of Iraq Wilhelm Koning, published his paper in which he assumed the vases were some sort of the galvanic cells, probably used for the gilding process on the silver objects. If Koning’s hypothesis is correct, it would mean the Parthians and Sassanid people new for the battery more than a thousand years before Alessandro Volta’s great invention. As we know, the first battery appeared in 1800!
The First Known Battery
Director of the National Museum of Iraq had another surprise. After the interrogation of the artifacts, he concluded that some vases date from a much earlier period- 2.500 B.C.E! This discovery was fascinating because, if the theory is true, it would completely change our understanding of history. The information that the people from the earliest known civilization used batteries in everyday life is pretty much surprising.
The scientists have continued to study these “electrical” vases, and their results were fascinating too.
It Works!
The American engineer from General Electric, Willard Gray, decided to create a replica of the Baghdad battery. With the expert help of the Willy Ley, rocket scientist from the Germany, he managed to get half volts of electricity.
The next attempt was in 1970, when the Arne Egebrecht tried to get the electricity from the ancient type of the battery. He poured the grape juice in it, and the result was optimistic. He succeeded to generate almost one Vat!
Although scientists have found these batteries work, nobody knows for sure what the main purpose of these strange objects was. There are several theories and possibilities about it, but the mystery about the Baghdad batteries is steel unsolved.
Medicine Or Money
One of the possible answers is the batteries were used in the medicine and anti- pain therapy. According to some sources, the ancient Greeks were treated pain with electric fish, and the Chinese still combines acupuncture with the electricity. Maybe the Parthians and Sassanid people were the precursor of these methods and their batteries were the first medical equipment.
According to the other theories, the main purpose of these rudimental batteries was in something more “realistic”- the money. The ancient people were using them for the plating.
