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The Baghdad Battery

or power for early weapons of mass destruction - a precedant has been set, someone tell shurb;)
 
Ancient Iraqui Batteries

This story seems to get rediscovered at intervals, wasn't there something similar in one of the early Von Danekin books?

I don't think there's anything inherently implausable about the claims of ancient batteries, the chemistry is fairly simple. I suppose it's a case of inventions having their time, and no-one saw any use or need for them beyond demonstrating the power of the gods, or whatever - if someone had invented the light buld as well the story would be completely different.The Ancient Greeks built little steam turbines but no-one found a use for them either.


Did anyone see the Channel 4 programme a couple of weeks back that demonstrated that Leonardi da Vinci's gliders would probably have worked if they'd been built at the time? Stability was a problem, but they'd have been a starting point and practical experience and the odd broken leg would have sorted out the difficulties.
 
Been a while since I read about this, but IIRC there were suggestions that low voltage devices like this could have been used for electroplating small pieces of metalwork. It was speculated that they could have been used to create base metal statuettes with a gold 'covering' that were passed off as the real thing. Sort of early product piracy.
 
At last it comes out !! The whole war on Iraq is about suppressing the evidence of ancient technology !! :D
 
I can remember reading about it in one of the von Daeniken books. Seemed to be one of the few items mentioned that could possibly be authentic.

Carole
 
They are quite mysterious- the bbc article covers the electro-plating argument but points out that it's not that likely because it doesn't seem to have enough power to do it and there have been no electro-plated objects discovered.

The trouble is that we just don't know how much they knew back then so it's quite hard to speculate on what these were for.
 
I wonder how much further mankind would have advanced if we'd not taken every opportunity to bash each other to pieces in the past
 
Breakfast said:
They are quite mysterious- the bbc article covers the electro-plating argument but points out that it's not that likely because it doesn't seem to have enough power to do it and there have been no electro-plated objects discovered.

The trouble is that we just don't know how much they knew back then so it's quite hard to speculate on what these were for.
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Sounds like typical BBC research to me (i.e. lazy). The first time I read about the electro-plating theory, I distinctly recall that it had been suggested specifically because of all the apparently electro-plated objects that had been found in the area, plus the area's reputation for "fine-plating" in contemporary accounts.

Just because the modern guys can't get the ancient technique to work doesn't mean that the technique doesn't work. (Recall a program on Discovery about watering the Hanging Gardens of Babylon with cast-bronze archimedes' screws. They tried to make one using the techniques of the period, but couldn't even get the bronze to melt, never mind cast it. Then, after days of experimenting, they realized the wood they were using as fuel wasn't burning half as hot as the (now relatively rare) wood that the ancients actually used. A small piece of local knowledge that made all the difference.)
 
whizzer said:
I wonder how much further mankind would have advanced if we'd not taken every opportunity to bash each other to pieces in the past
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Depends what you mean by advanced. Most major techno-advances seem to come about because of aggression, not despite of it.

Perhaps we'd all be transcendent beings, living in a world of pure spirit, by now... or not.
 
whizzer said:
I wonder how much further mankind would have advanced if we'd not taken every opportunity to bash each other to pieces in the past
Click to expand...

The real impediment to advancement seems to have been the institution of slavery: e.g. Heron of Alexandria (1st C. CE) allegedly had everything needed in his workshop to build a steam-engine, (and in fact described the priniple in some detail in a treatise) but in an economy where you could buy all the cheap labour you needed there was no impetus for him -or for that matter, for any of his contemporaries- to put all the bits together.
 
Zygon said:
The real impediment to advancement seems to have been the institution of slavery: e.g. Heron of Alexandria (1st C. CE) allegedly had everything needed in his workshop to build a steam-engine, (and in fact described the priniple in some detail in a treatise) but in an economy where you could buy all the cheap labour you needed there was no impetus for him -or for that matter, for any of his contemporaries- to put all the bits together.
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Didn't the Roman Emperor Trajan bring in a law to halt too much technological innovation, because it might undermine the slave economy?
 
And there's me blaming the Christians...

The Librarian Hypatia was torn apart by fundamentalist types in 415-
however,
it appears that the library was in fact destroyed in installments over the years, and my alternative history of the world was a bit skewed-

To develop an electricity based civilisation the Ancient world would have needed a Ben Franklin, , a Volta, a Gauss, a Faraday...
could have taken thousands of years in a different civilisation
 
Status of the Baghdad Battery?

Does anyone know the status of the Baghdad Battery, post "Iraqi Freedom?" With all the raiding and destruction that went on during the overthrow of Baghdad, it would have been a terrible shame for it to have been plundered, or worse, destroyed. I'll admit to being a bit worried about it, and any kind of reassurance would set my mind at ease.
 
Apparently, most of the stuff from the museums has survived - although some of it was hidden away, and some of it was sold by unscrupulous museum workers.
It's possible that this item is back in its original place.
 
I've just read an article about the battery in a recent issue of the Dutch 'Frontier Magazine' (issue Nr. 9,5), where it mentions the remarkable fact that the copper tube inside the battery, was soldered together using a soldering alloy with a mix of 40/60% tin to lead. Which, the article points out, is the same ratio used for electrical solder to this day.

Unfortunately, this small point does not make me think that the ancients were remarkably avanced. It makes me suspect that the 'Baghdad battery' might actually be a rather crude forgery.

I hope I'm wrong.

So, if it's still in one piece, hopefully somebody will examine it more carefully in the future.
 
I believe the battery has actually been dated to around 2000 years ago, with some accuracy (give or take a couple hundred years). I don't think the "ancients" were as advanced as some new age-types would like to give them credit for, but the Greeks and Persians came pretty darn close to starting the industrial revolution before and around the time of Christ. You should look at some of the inventions of Heron of Alexandria, which include, among other things, a steam-engine. I guess the demand just wasn't there.

For the record, the official theories are that the battery was either used for electro-plating gold, or it had some medicinal use. I doubt anyone had actually thought to "power" anything with it.
 
Sort of like the ancient Americans having wheels on toys but no carriages or carts? Missing a possible use for the battery that was greater than the reason it was created for in the first place?
 
Is The Baghdad Battery a Clever Hoax?

I really want to believe in the provenance of the Baghdad Battery, as a 2200 year old electrical artifact. It's the question of the electrical solder, that really disturbs me.

I first came across a reference to the battery, back in the 1970's. It was probably in von Daniken's 'Chariots of the Gods'. In the end, it was about one of the few things from the book that I thought might well be a genuine anomaly.

According to an article I've been reading*, by Jeanella Felius, the discoverer of the battery, the German, Dr Willhelm König, was the Director of the National Museum of Baghdad, in 1938, when it was first mentioned. According to the article, Dr Wilhelm König was also a mechanical engineer.

The Battery's provenance is unclear. According to Dr König, it was found at a site near Khujut Rabu, in the neighbourhood of Baghdad and ascribed to the Parthians, a people who dominated Iraq, from around 248bc until 226ad. It's not clear if Dr König dug up the object himself, or if he found it in the cellars of the museum.

The artifact consisted of a clay pot, containing a copper tube and a steel rod, or pin, which had been sealed with pitch. The copper tube was made out of a thin sheet of copper and soldered with an alloy of 40/60 - tin/lead solder. Once filled with the appropriate electrolyte, an acid of some kind, wine vinegar, or lemon juice perhaps, it would act as a perfectly servicable battery. A copy, filled with vinegar, in tests conducted during 1999-2000, by two students studying under Dr Marjorie Senechal of "Smith College, USA", produced a very respectable 1.1 volts.

According to the article, a Dr St. John Simpson, attached to the British Museum later identified the pot (the container itself), as having all the characteristics of an ordinary pot of the Sassanidian period, from about 225 to 640ad. So there's a slight difference in time period and the possible location from Dr König's claim.

Now, I know about many of the possible uses for such a battery, in medicine, electroplating and shockingly, electrifying Iconic statues of Gods (perhaps, as lie detectors and to awe the worshippers), and I've read of the Chinese aluminium, copper and manganese belt, found in the tomb of a General Chu and dated to 300bc. There is also mention, in the article, of an Egyptian sword made of copper and coated with a thin layer of antimony, which was analysed by a Dr Colin Fink in 1933. he dated the sword to 4300bc.

But, nonetheless, as regards the Baghdad Battery, I wonder why a solder developed for soldering parts onto circuit boards would have first been developed and found necessary to solder an ancient copper tube?

Definitely, the Baghdad Battery is worth a new investigation. According to Jeanella Felius' article, after the chaos of recent months, it is not even known if the battery is still in the Baghdad Museum.



* 'De 2000 jaar oude batterij van Bagdad' by Jeannella Felius, from the Dutch, 'Frontier Magazine' Issue Nº. 9.5 (september/october 2003).
 
I believe the battery has actually been dated to around 2000 years ago
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But is that date just for the pot itself or does it include the electrodes too (and can you date metal?)

It's possible that the pot could be genuine but designed for an entirely different purpose, and it's been adapted by a forger?
 
On a semi-related note, I've been thinking of fabricating my own Baghdad Battery replica, to the best of my abilities. I haven't the time right now, but I'd like to get started on it sometime this spring. Another idea I'm toying with is an Alexandrian steam engine. I've been interested in reproducing ancient inventions for some time now, and I might start a thread on the topic once the project gets off the ground.
 
Its a year old but the Beeb have a good article on this with some interesting illustrations (one attached):

Riddle of 'Baghdad's batteries'

Arran Frood investigates what could have been the very first batteries and how these important archaeological and technological artefacts are now at risk from the impending war in Iraq.

I don't think anyone can say for sure what they were used for, but they may have been batteries because they do work
Dr Marjorie Senechal

War can destroy more than a people, an army or a leader. Culture, tradition and history also lie in the firing line.

Iraq has a rich national heritage. The Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel are said to have been sited in this ancient land.

In any war, there is a chance that priceless treasures will be lost forever, articles such as the "ancient battery" that resides defenceless in the museum of Baghdad.

For this object suggests that the region, whose civilizations gave us writing and the wheel, may also have invented electric cells - two thousand years before such devices were well known.

Biblical clues

It was in 1938, while working in Khujut Rabu, just outside Baghdad in modern day Iraq, that German archaeologist Wilhelm Konig unearthed a five-inch-long (13 cm) clay jar containing a copper cylinder that encased an iron rod.

The vessel showed signs of corrosion, and early tests revealed that an acidic agent, such as vinegar or wine had been present.

In the early 1900s, many European archaeologists were excavating ancient Mesopotamian sites, looking for evidence of Biblical tales like the Tree of Knowledge and Noah's flood.

Konig did not waste his time finding alternative explanations for his discovery. To him, it had to have been a battery.

Though this was hard to explain, and did not sit comfortably with the religious ideology of the time, he published his conclusions. But soon the world was at war, and his discovery was forgotten.

Scientific awareness

More than 60 years after their discovery, the batteries of Baghdad - as there are perhaps a dozen of them - are shrouded in myth.

"The batteries have always attracted interest as curios," says Dr Paul Craddock, a metallurgy expert of the ancient Near East from the British Museum.

"They are a one-off. As far as we know, nobody else has found anything like these. They are odd things; they are one of life's enigmas."

No two accounts of them are the same. Some say the batteries were excavated, others that Konig found them in the basement of the Baghdad Museum when he took over as director. There is no definite figure on how many have been found, and their age is disputed.

Most sources date the batteries to around 200 BC - in the Parthian era, circa 250 BC to AD 225. Skilled warriors, the Parthians were not noted for their scientific achievements.

"Although this collection of objects is usually dated as Parthian, the grounds for this are unclear," says Dr St John Simpson, also from the department of the ancient Near East at the British Museum.

"The pot itself is Sassanian. This discrepancy presumably lies either in a misidentification of the age of the ceramic vessel, or the site at which they were found."

Underlying principles

In the history of the Middle East, the Sassanian period (circa AD 225 - 640) marks the end of the ancient and the beginning of the more scientific medieval era.

Though most archaeologists agree the devices were batteries, there is much conjecture as to how they could have been discovered, and what they were used for.

How could ancient Persian science have grasped the principles of electricity and arrived at this knowledge?

Perhaps they did not. Many inventions are conceived before the underlying principles are properly understood.

The Chinese invented gunpowder long before the principles of combustion were deduced, and the rediscovery of old herbal medicines is now a common occurrence.

You do not always have to understand why something works - just that it does.

Enough zap

It is certain the Baghdad batteries could conduct an electric current because many replicas have been made, including by students of ancient history under the direction of Dr Marjorie Senechal, professor of the history of science and technology, Smith College, US.

"I don't think anyone can say for sure what they were used for, but they may have been batteries because they do work," she says. Replicas can produce voltages from 0.8 to nearly two volts.

Making an electric current requires two metals with different electro potentials and an ion carrying solution, known as an electrolyte, to ferry the electrons between them.

Connected in series, a set of batteries could theoretically produce a much higher voltage, though no wires have ever been found that would prove this had been the case.

"It's a pity we have not found any wires," says Dr Craddock. "It means our interpretation of them could be completely wrong."

But he is sure the objects are batteries and that there could be more of them to discover. "Other examples may exist that lie in museums elsewhere unrecognised".

He says this is especially possible if any items are missing, as the objects only look like batteries when all the pieces are in place.

Possible uses

Some have suggested the batteries may have been used medicinally.

The ancient Greeks wrote of the pain killing effect of electric fish when applied to the soles of the feet.

The Chinese had developed acupuncture by this time, and still use acupuncture combined with an electric current. This may explain the presence of needle-like objects found with some of the batteries.

But this tiny voltage would surely have been ineffective against real pain, considering the well-recorded use of other painkillers in the ancient world like cannabis, opium and wine.

Other scientists believe the batteries were used for electroplating - transferring a thin layer of metal on to another metal surface - a technique still used today and a common classroom experiment.

This idea is appealing because at its core lies the mother of many inventions: money.

In the making of jewellery, for example, a layer of gold or silver is often applied to enhance its beauty in a process called gilding.

Grape electrolyte

Two main techniques of gilding were used at the time and are still in use today: hammering the precious metal into thin strips using brute force, or mixing it with a mercury base which is then pasted over the article.

These techniques are effective, but wasteful compared with the addition of a small but consistent layer of metal by electro-deposition. The ability to mysteriously electroplate gold or silver on to such objects would not only save precious resources and money, but could also win you important friends at court.

Let's hope the world manages to resolve its present problems so people can go and see them
Dr Paul Craddock
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A palace, kingdom, or even the sultan's daughter may have been the reward for such knowledge - and motivation to keep it secret.

Testing this idea in the late seventies, Dr Arne Eggebrecht, then director of Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, connected many replica Baghdad batteries together using grape juice as an electrolyte, and claimed to have deposited a thin layer of silver on to another surface, just one ten thousandth of a millimetre thick.

Other researchers though, have disputed these results and have been unable to replicate them.

"There does not exist any written documentation of the experiments which took place here in 1978," says Dr Bettina Schmitz, currently a researcher based at the same Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum.

"The experiments weren't even documented by photos, which really is a pity," she says. "I have searched through the archives of this museum and I talked to everyone involved in 1978 with no results."

Tingling idols

Although a larger voltage can be obtained by connecting more than one battery together, it is the ampage which is the real limiting factor, and many doubt whether a high enough power could ever have been obtained, even from tens of Baghdad batteries.

One serious flaw with the electroplating hypothesis is the lack of items from this place and time that have been treated in this way.

"The examples we see from this region and era are conventional gild plating and mercury gilding," says Dr Craddock. "There's never been any untouchable evidence to support the electroplating theory."

He suggests a cluster of the batteries, connected in parallel, may have been hidden inside a metal statue or idol.

He thinks that anyone touching this statue may have received a tiny but noticeable electric shock, something akin to the static discharge that can infect offices, equipment and children's parties.

"I have always suspected you would get tricks done in the temple," says Dr Craddock. "The statue of a god could be wired up and then the priest would ask you questions.

"If you gave the wrong answer, you'd touch the statue and would get a minor shock along with perhaps a small mysterious blue flash of light. Get the answer right, and the trickster or priest could disconnect the batteries and no shock would arrive - the person would then be convinced of the power of the statue, priest and the religion."

Magical rituals

It is said that to the uninitiated, science cannot be distinguished from magic. "In Egypt we know this sort of thing happened with Hero's engine," Dr Craddock says.

Hero's engine was a primitive steam-driven machine, and like the battery of Baghdad, no one is quite sure what it was used for, but are convinced it could work.

If this idol could be found, it would be strong evidence to support the new theory. With the batteries inside, was this object once revered, like the Oracle of Delphi in Greece, and "charged" with godly powers?

Even if the current were insufficient to provide a genuine shock, it may have felt warm, a bizarre tingle to the touch of the unsuspecting finger.

At the very least, it could have just been the container of these articles, to keep their secret safe.

Perhaps it is too early to say the battery has been convincingly demonstrated to be part of a magical ritual. Further examination, including accurate dating, of the batteries' components are needed to really answer this mystery.

No one knows if such an idol or statue that could have hidden the batteries really exists, but perhaps the opportunity to look is not too far away - if the items survive the looming war in the Middle East.

"These objects belong to the successors of the people who made them," says Dr Craddock. "Let's hope the world manages to resolve its present problems so people can go and see them."
Click to expand...

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/2804257.stm
Published: 2003/02/27 13:48:42 GMT
© BBC MMIV
 
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ancient batteries of Iraq

apologies if theres already a thread devoted to this,

world-mysteries.com/sar_11.htm
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040207063015/https://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_11.htm

so how far did this spread around the world, is there any evidence of similar finds in Europe?

what else could they have used the batteries for apart from plating and electrifying statues?
 
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I think there is a thread about this somewhere.

AFAIK they're unique.
 
I think they're fakes. The use of proprietry electrical solder in their construction is a probable give away.
 
Well, lead and tin were available then, so it's not impossible that the ancients developed a form of solder. It's just improbable that they would have chosen the same proportions for a mix of lead and tin as we use today.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Well, lead and tin were available then, so it's not impossible that the ancients developed a form of solder. It's just improbable that they would have chosen the same proportions for a mix of lead and tin as we use today.
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Yep! :)
 
In today's Quora, someone quoted an ancient Indian Sanskrit text - Agastya Samhita, allegedly describing something very similar to the Baghdad batteries.

pot1.JPG
pot2.JPG

https://www.booksfact.com/technolog...-for-electric-battery-in-agastya-samhita.html

I'd almost given up on the Baghdad batteries, as the alternative explanation of storage containers for scrolls seemed more likely.
If this earlier Indian text can be verified as describing what is given in the translation above, that would possibly validate the electrical hypothesis for the Baghdad batteries.
 
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