Baghdad Battery
"The term Baghdad Battery is used to refer to three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of one metal, and a rod of another. The current interpretation of their purpose is as a storage vessel for sacred scrolls from nearby Seleucia on the Tigris. Those vessels do not have the outermost clay jar, but are otherwise almost identical.
Wilhelm König was a professional painter who was an assistant at the National Museum of Iraq in the 1930s. When he returned to Germany in 1940 he authored a paper offering the hypothesis that they may have formed a galvanic cell, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects. This interpretation is generally rejected today."
Wilhelm König was a professional painter who was an assistant at the National Museum of Iraq in the 1930s. When he returned to Germany in 1940 he authored a paper offering the hypothesis that they may have formed a galvanic cell, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects. This interpretation is generally rejected today."
- Text from Wikipedia entry for "Baghdad battery" (accessed 10/12/2015)
- Image source
Blog Posts and Articles
- "Jason Martell's Baghdad Battery Puffery; Plus: The Real Story Behind the "Sumerian" Cellphone" (Jason Colavito, 1/12/2016)
- "The 10 Most Not-So-Puzzling Ancient Artifacts: The Baghdad Battery" (ArchyFantasies, 6/22/2012)
- "The "Batteries of Babylon'" (Kieth Fitzpatrick-Matthews, 12/26/2009)
- "The 'Baghdad Battery'" (The Iron Skeptic)
Other Online Media
- "The Real and the Fake: Baghdad Batteries and the Antikythera Mechanism" (ArchyFantasies podcast, Episode 19, 9/7/2015)
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