Baghdad Battery

Baghdad Battery: The ancient Baghdad Battery of Iraq is housed in the Baghdad museum and is believed to be 2000 years old as discussed in Ancient Electricity at Violations. It was discovered around 1936 close to Baghdad, Iraq in the village of Khuyut Rabbou'a.

The German Egyptologist and then director of the National Museum of Iraq, Arne Eggebrecht, built a replica of the Baghdad battery and filled it with freshly pressed grape juice, as he speculated the ancients might have done.

The replica generated 0.87V and he was able to use the current from the battery to electroplate a silver statuette with gold proving that electric batteries were used some 1,800 years before their modern invention by Alessandro Volta in 1799. 

Of interest is that, whilst not particularly highly technical, although a marvel of its age, the discovery of the battery at Khuyut Rabbou'a is itself a bit of a mystery for at the time of the battery's construction it was an area inhabited by Parthians, a people not associated in any way for any form of technical achievement suggesting that the real origin of the Baghdad battery may lie elsewhere. This is an excerpt, to read the full article click here.