Baghdad Battery

Socrates the Cyborg · Post by **Socrates the Cyborg** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:19 pm

Others may have heard of this before but I just saw a show on the history channel claiming that the ancients had BATTERIES! I guess it turns out this is a little bit more controversial than the show presented it,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
but at the same time is pretty astounding if true. It was presented in the context of some other claims for ancient use of electricity. One was about amber that seemed to be less substantive, but another one was about the use of lightning rods on temples which makes a lot of sense from the point of view of causing mystical displays. Anyway, I'm curious what others here think of this, and thought I would share in case others hadn't heard of it.

Arvid · Post by **Arvid** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:14 pm

I think the consensus is that these things were a primitive kind of electroplating cell, which is amazing enough, but we don't have to picture them conducting current out of them with wires and using it to...do what, exactly? Nobody ever suggests anything.