In
1936 an object found in central Mesopotamia, an area of Iraq occupied
by the Parthians
between 248 BC and 226 AD, came to the attention of Wilhelm Konig a
German in
charge of the Iraq Museum’s laboratory. He wrote:
“Something
rather peculiar was found, and after it had passed through several
hands it was brought to me. A vase-like vessel of light yellow clay,
whose neck had been removed, contained a copper cylinder which was held
firmly by asphalt. The vase was about 15 cm high; the sheet copper
cylindrical tube with bottom had a diameter of 26 mm and was 9 cm long.
In it, held by a kind of stopper of asphalt, was a completely oxidized
iron rod, the top of which projected about 1 cm above the stopper and
was covered by a yellowish-gray, fully oxidized thin coating of metal
which looked like lead. The bottom end of the iron rod did not extend
right to the bottom of the cylinder, on which was a layer of asphalt
about 3 mm deep. The question as to what this might be, received the
most surprising answer. After all the parts had been brought together
and then examined in their separate parts, it became evident that it
could only have been an electrical element. It was only necessary to
add an alkaline liquid to complete the element.”
Confirmation of
Konig’s theory came years later from another German, Dr Arne
Eggebrecht, an Egyptologist who found the apparatus included in an
exhibition at the museum where he worked. Employing exact
replicas of the components, the vase filled with fresh grape juice,
Eggebrecht obtained surprising results. A voltmeter connected to the
device registered a half volt of electricity.
That the apparatus
could indeed store and produce electric current (was in fact a battery)
helped clear up an age old
archaeological
mystery,
the
puzzle being that many ancient statues on display in the worlds museums
appear
to be electroplated. (An electric current run through a
gold-cyanide solution in which a silver statue is immersed induces a
thin veneer of gold to adhere to the statue.) A simple test proved the
hypothesis to be correct, batteries it seems are not a modern
invention and were in fact being used for industrial purposes two
thousand
years ago. It appears Volta and Galvani were not their inventors, they
merely re-introduced them to the modern world.
