Baghdad battery - photo

[Altair]

The Baghdad battery was an artifact consisting of a ceramic pot containing an iron rod wrapped in copper sheet. Researchers hypothesize that the battery was used for electroplating or electrotherapy.




Previously:

Babylonian base-60 numeral system - photo
4,000 year old Egyptian model tools - images
Strigil body oil scrapers - photo
Ancient Chinese seismoscope - photos
7,000 year old stone rollers - photo

[Moby Duck]

Surely that’s half a Baghdad Battery.

[jdurand]

How is it that those batteries didn't leak over millennia but I've found batteries within their use-by date leaking new in the package?

Actually, I have a Burgess battery from an OLD geiger counter that hasn't leaked and still shows some voltage.

[mklotz]

How is it that those batteries didn't leak over millennia but I've found batteries within their use-by date leaking new in the package?

I had a great deal of trouble with leaking batteries when I used Copper Top batteries. Since switching to Energizer I haven't had a single leaker.

I just wish they would replace the pink bunny in their ads with something a bit more masculine :-)

[Moldyjim]

[QUOTE=mklotz;162460]I had a great deal of trouble with leaking batteries when I used Copper Top batteries. Since switching to Energizer I haven't had a single leaker.

I'll have to try that.
Remember when battery companies would "repair or replace any device damaged by leaking batteries"?
Doubt they will do that today.

[gatz]

so, how old is the Baghdad Battery ? and where was it found ?

[mklotz]

so, how old is the Baghdad Battery ? and where was it found ?

Wikipedia knows all...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

[jdurand]

So, archaeologists say these couldn't have been used for electroplating because they've never found them wired in series with electroplated items sitting next to them.

Seems all the electroplated items were in a different museum so obviously they were never connected.

I read a fiction story a long time ago where an engineering student interned with an archaeologist. He noticed that in several places the guys were carefully brushing away odd colored dirt from around the bones. He finally got permission to cut out a section of the find, encase it whole and have it examined with a CT scan. Turns out the odd colored dirt was decomposed metals and they were in the shape of tools.

The things you can miss when you are convinced they aren't there.

[mklotz]

Archaeologists bug me. They'll dig up and catalogue a few buckets of pottery shards and from them concoct a story of how the pottery makers lived, what they ate for breakfast and their dance steps. Very soon they believe their concoction.

Then the next herd of "scientists" will use the concocted stories as truth to establish the validity of their newest concoction. And so it continues.

They totally miss the fact that just because that's the only conclusion you can imagine doesn't make it truth.

No wonder Lord Kelvin said, "In science there is only physics, all the rest is stamp collecting."

[Jon]

No wonder Lord Kelvin said, "In science there is only physics, all the rest is stamp collecting."