The Baghdad Battery: One of History’s Strangest Tech Mysteries
Have you heard about the Baghdad Battery? It’s a fascinating artifact that has puzzled scientists for years. Originally thought to date back to the time of the Parthians (248 B.C. – A.D. 226), the timeline has since shifted, and it is now believed to belong to the Sasanian Iranian empire (A.D. 224 – 650). Despite this shift, it still pushes back the date of the first recorded battery, created by Alessandro Volta in March 1800, to a much earlier time.
The batteries, which are actually jars, were discovered by German archaeologist Wilhelm Konig in modern-day Iraq. He noticed that the jars contained galvanic cells with two different metals and an electrolyte, such as vinegar or wine. These components are essential for batteries, leading Konig to believe that the jars served as ancient batteries.
Experiments have been conducted on replicas of the Baghdad Battery, and they have shown that when the jars are filled with weak acid, they produce around 1 volt of electricity. In fact, a General Electric engineer managed to create almost 2 volts, which is equivalent to about 1/40th of a triple-A battery.
Some researchers suggest that if wires were added to the jars, they could potentially produce even more power. However, no evidence of such wires has ever been found. While it’s true that humanity’s understanding of electricity is older than commonly believed, referring to the Baghdad Battery as a “battery” may be a bit of a stretch.
If you want to see an image of the Baghdad Battery, check out this picture by Ironie via Wikimedia Commons, available under the CC BY-SA 2.5 license.
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