Baghdad battery - RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Baghd...

Baghdad battery
From RationalWiki

The Baghdad battery is a collection of artifacts found in

a village near Baghdad, Iraq, in the 1930s. Apparently
dating to the Sassanid era, the "battery" consists of a fired
ceramic container, some rolled sheet copper, a rod of iron
and a bitumen bung.[1] The separate components of a
simple galvanic cell were within the technological means
of the local artisans of its time, but the question is why
they would ever have wanted to build such a thing.[2]
Sketch of a Baghdad
battery by a helpful
Wikipedian.
Contents
Style over substance
1 History of the "ancient battery" Pseudoscience
theory
2 Hypothesis versus evidence
2.1 Experimental
archaeology
2.2 Electroplating
2.3 Religious tingle Popular pseudosciences
2.4 Medicinal use
2.5 Scroll jars Alternative medicine
3 Assuming that they're batteries Creation science
4 The woo Racialism
5 See also
6 References Random examples

Ancient giant silicon-based tree

hypothesis
History of the "ancient Dimitri van der Linden
Feng shui
battery" theory Indiana Pi Bill
March Against Monsanto
Wilhelm König found the objects in the Phrenology
collection of the National Museum of Piltdown Man
Iraq, or possibly dug them up himself at Q-Ray
a place called Khujut Rabu, depending S. Fred Singer
on which account you're reading.
Certainly there is no reliable v - t - e (https://rationalwiki.org
/w/index.php?title=Template:Pseudosciencenav&
documentation of the archeological dig,

1 of 5 12/26/18, 11:35 AM
Baghdad battery - RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Baghd...

nor enough information about the action=edit)

stratigraphy to date the finds from their
archeological context. For no well-documented reason, they were declared to date
from the Parthian civilisation, and are sometimes known as the Parthian batteries,
but the outer jars are in the much later Sassanid style. The possible date range for
the finds is therefore from 250 BCE to 650 CE.[citation needed]

König wrote a book in 1940, Neun Jahre Irak, hypothesizing that the objects were
primitive galvanic cells, or electric batteries. He speculated that the "batteries"
were used for electroplating precious metals.[3]

Hypothesis versus evidence

The König hypothesis, as a hypothesis, isn't quite as far out there as it sounds. His
speculation was based in part on the observation that the iron rods appeared to
have been corroded by contact with an acid. In modern times, electroplating was
discovered multiple times independently within a few years of the invention of the
galvanic cell. If an ancient inventor happened to assemble something that
functioned as a battery, there is no particular reason why the discovery of
electroplating could not follow. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that this
actually happened, and no ancient electroplated artifacts have been identified.
Ancient items that were thought by König to have been electroplated have since
been shown to have been produced using the fire-gilding method.[citation needed]

There is also the fact that the objects, as found, are not a complete "electroplating
kit". No evidence of accompanying wires or conductors has been discovered.
Neither has any evidence of other technology that might have required electricity
as a power source.[4]

Experimental archaeology

Based on experimental archaeology, it is generally agreed that the objects

discovered in Iraq, with some modifications and the addition of an electrolyte
solution, are capable of functioning as a crude battery. (So is a lemon
(http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/lemon.html).) It is also generally agreed
that several such batteries would be required for electroplating. However, the
important point about experimental archeology is that proving that something was
feasible does not equal scientific proof that it ever happened.

Electroplating

Experimental archeologists, not to mention the Mythbusters,[5] have created

functional, if extremely weak, galvanic cells based on the design of the "Baghdad
battery". The most frequently cited experiment is that made by Dr Arne

2 of 5 12/26/18, 11:35 AM
Baghdad battery - RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Baghd...

Eggebrecht during the 1970s. Dr Eggebrecht reported success in electroplating

with silver using replicas of the Baghdad objects, but this experiment was
undocumented.

Religious tingle

Another hypothesis (as seen on Mythbusters) is that the low voltage battery was
used to generate a sort of religious experience, with the "buzz" of touching an
electrified object being perceived as proof of supernatural or divine forces at
work.

Medicinal use

Another theory is that the low voltage batteries were used medicinally. A startling
new scientific discovery might be seized upon by the credulous or the
unscrupulous as the new panacea, as happened when electricity caught the public
imagination during the 19th century.[6]

Scroll jars

An alternative theory that doesn't involve battery technology at all suggests that
the jars are a form of protective document storage[7], with the decayed organic
matter of the original papyrus documents accounting for the acidic residue and
corrosion that the battery hypothesis attributes to the presence of an electrolyte
solution. There isn't any overwhelming proof of the "scroll jars" scenario either,
beyond the conclusion that very similar (but jar-less) objects discovered nearby
had this function. Strangely, there is rather less media and pseudoscientific
interest in the suggestion that people used to store stuff in pots.

Assuming that they're batteries

So, let's assume for the sake of argument that the objects are batteries. What can
we extrapolate from their existence before we strike pure woo? Any one of the
Baghdad batteries is capable of producing up to about 1 volt at low current. To put
that in context, two of them would be capable of powering a digital watch. For any
prolonged use, you'd need to keep topping up the electrolyte solution; the design
and small size of the batteries makes this tricky. It would take several of them to
power the electroplating process, and they would need to be connected together
somehow.

No evidence for additional components has yet been discovered, nor is there
anything to suggest the existence of any technology that required electrical power,
so let's go with the "religious experience" idea. Let's guess that there was a
slightly electrified metal icon, with the battery hidden out of sight, and that people

3 of 5 12/26/18, 11:35 AM
Baghdad battery - RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Baghd...

were invited to touch or to kiss it to obtain a religious or a novelty experience.

Many schoolchildren today try out the lemon-battery experiment and feel the
tingle of electricity on their tongue, while learning about how an electrical circuit
works. That distinctive tingle must have been a pretty impressive, even "magical"
experience in a pre-industrial society, whose only other experience of electricity
would be uncontrolled, in the form of static charge and lightning strikes. A priest
or showman able to deliver the miracle on demand could have commanded
considerable awe.

It's fun to speculate, just so long as nobody gets confused and mistakes the
speculation for hard evidence. Which brings us to the woo.

The woo
The woo arrives with the notion of the out-of-place artifact, and the belief that the
ancient world could not possibly have produced such technology independently. A
number of authors, notably including Erich von Däniken, have decided that the
König interpretation is evidence that Ancients Possessed Advanced Technology.
Depending on the author's favorite brand of woo, the source of the advancement
may be Atlantis or aliens. Rather than conclude from the available evidence, "wow,
those ancients might just have been experimenting with chemical reactions and
discovered the battery; that's pretty damned incredible!", the pseudoscientist
leaps all the way from, "possible crude battery" to, "obviously the secrets of an
advanced civilisation, used to power transportation and lighting". [8]

The Baghdad battery keeps company in woo circles with pseudoarcheology

favourites such as the Coso artifact, the belief that the Pharos lighthouse was
powered by electricity, the Dendera lamp, the Ark of the Covenant, the Abydos
helicopter, and the construction of the Giza pyramids.

The interpretation of the Baghdad objects as out-of-place artifacts rests upon the
assumption that the Parthians or the Sassanids could not possibly have built a
battery because the technology is too advanced. In reality, the objects are nothing
more than an earthenware jar, some copper, some iron and some bitumen, with a
possible acidic residue. Our hypothetical ancient inventor does not need to
understand that copper and iron form an electrochemical couple that reacts with
an electrolyte solution in order to observe the effect, nor have any concept of the
potential uses of controlled electricity in order to conclude, "wow, that tingles".

See also
Dendera lamp
Woo
Pseudoscience

4 of 5 12/26/18, 11:35 AM
Baghdad battery - RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Baghd...

References
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2804257.stm
2. https://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/battery2.html
3. Neun jahre Irak by Wilhelm König (1940). Rudolf M. Rohrer, 184 pages.
4. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1972.htm
5. http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-database/ancient-
batteries.htm
6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2804257.stm
7. http://www.badarchaeology.com/out-of-place-artefacts/anomalously-old-technology
/the-%E2%80%98batteries-of-babylon%E2%80%99/
8. http://www.ancient-code.com/the-baghdad-battery

Retrieved from "https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Baghdad_battery&

oldid=1961086"

Categories: Pseudoscience Iraq Out-of-place artifact Pseudohistory Woo

This page was last modified on 1 June 2018, at 19:10.

Unless explicitly noted otherwise, all content licensed as indicated by
RationalWiki:Copyrights.
For concerns on copyright infringement please see: RationalWiki:Copyright
violations

5 of 5 12/26/18, 11:35 AM