Monday, February 21, 2011

Baghdad Battery


The Baghdad Battery, also known as the Parthian Battery, is the common name of Mesopotamian artifacts discovered in 1936 near Baghdad (hence the name.) They were probably created in the Parthian or Sassanid period, between 250 BCE and 640 CE. In 1940, Wilhelm König published a paper speculating that they may have been galvanic cells, batteries, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects. This interpretation continues to be considered as at least a hypothetical possibility. If correct, the artifacts would predate Alessandro Volta's 1800 invention of the electrochemical cell by more than a millennium!

The pots contain an electrochemical couple of copper and iron, and so if one were to place a suitable acid, such as lemon juice, grape juice or vinegar, an electrical current would form. The voltage, however, would be very low with this particular pair of metals.

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