Ancient Iraqi Battery

That's interesting, but wouldn't the History Forum be more appropriate than Current Events for something discovered in 1938?

 

Joe I read your topic and thought ..Oh! we must have just finished training an Iraqi military
unit. I would say you are in the 50/50 range on
where it should go..in fact you could post both
places would not bother me. Interesting story by
the BBC I like to read about archaeological finds
with the rest of the couch Indiana Jones of the world.



bump! bump! bump! and going and going....

 

Okay, I'm moving it to the history forum. There are many "unexplained" mysteries of the ancients. Someone wrote a book on it one time.

Joseph, you might be interested in this book:

Secrets of the Lost Races

They're called ooparts.

I read it years ago and found it intriguing.

 

About as intriguing as "Chariots of the Gods."

How do you know the Egyptian drawing is a vacuum tube? Is it hooked up to an ancient IPOD?

 

Dry cell? Wet cell?

When is a cell a battery?

Maybe these "curious artifacts" from Baghdad are storage cells for "solar powered flashlights". It would not be the first time someone got "duped" by those dealing in "pseudo-science".

Looking for some intriguing reading: Book of Genesis, followed by Book of Revelation.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Afterthought: maybe some folks liked to warm their wine in winter.

Maybe we did not evolve after all--we seem to be "re-discovering" a lot lately. Are we getting "dumber" instead of "smarter"?

Some think they are smarter than God--wrong answer. He knows the end from before the beginning--and everything in between.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Yes, Sir, we be dumber than the first man--Adam.

He was formed with all the faculties to even name the flora and fauna. Six thousand years later modern man is still having trouble with Darwin's finches and other trivial pursuits.

Mankind is depraved.

Jesus saves.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

More to the point: Man continues to be perplexed by things which he "discovers"--especially things from "antiquity".

That man has been mechanically inclined for at least several thousand years is evidenced by the pyramids of Egypt. It is reported that the Great Pyramid has a 13 acre base which is level within one half an inch. Someone must have been acquainted with plumb and level; not to mention the ability to move massive dead weights long distances--uphill.

Nimrod and company built the tower of Babel--God knocked it down.

Then there was the Titanic.

There I go--chasing rabbits again. Sorry.

Are we trying to figure out how many volts were in the ancient relics which appear to be some sort of galvanic device? Was there any evidence of sulphate deposits?

I, too, am a maker of conjecture and speculation.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

I was of the understanding that the Bagdad batteries were actual batteries and the debate was over the purpose of the batteries.

 

See, all of this intrigues me because I do believe we are not as intelligent as Adam and people who lived long ago - who also lived much longer than we do.

There are a lot of unexplained artifacts and unexplained questions. I read somewhere there was evidence of a nuclear explosion found several thousands of years ago, long before we "discovered" nuclear fission. That kind of stuff.

I'm sorry to have hijacked your thread, Joseph, about the purpose of the Iraqi batteries. I just find all of these ooparts very fascinating.

 

The purpose of the "batteries" have been debated for a long time. I think the favored explanation right now is that they were used for electroplating mentioned in the article Joseph posted.

They have been linked to the time of the Parthians in the area.

At the bottom of this page is an overview with some links to other sites:
http://www.parthia.com/parthia_arts.htm#Artifacts

 

Possible uses of an ancient "battery":

1. Already mentioned, electrodeposition, changes the appearance and physical properties of a metal object. i.e. better swords, chariot parts, arrows, shields etc. etc.

2. What do we use free-electrons for today? Heat, light, torque--the practical applications of the controlled movement of electrons is seemingly endless, including the world of medicine(electrolytes are an integral part of the human being).

3. To what extent was electrical energy used several thousand years ago is highly speculative. The armies with the road/bridge engineers and chariots seemed to do better than the armies using elephants. Yet the effects of winter have stopped the best of armies--even in our time.

4. Take away the the "emf" and the world as we know it would cease--our computers would not function--the gray matter and the machines.

5. Did man figure out how to use this phenomena long before the industrial revolution? Probably so.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

If Eratosthenes could determine the circumfrence of the earth 240 years before the birth of Jesus, why do we so often think of ancients capable of so little else? It is a fascinating subject. I do not find it odd that we lost a great deal of our capabilities physically and mentally with the fall and that it was a gradual degeneration in some respects. The lifespan of OT people has been doubted by many as well.

FYI, Eratosthenes:
http://www.answers.com/topic/240s-bc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

 

This kind of thing fascinates me.
What if mankind was a lot more intelligent in biblical times than we give him credit for?

 

I first heard of the Baghdad Battery when some fellow was speculating that electricity was known in the ancient world, and that the Ark of the Covenant was merely a big capacitor.

<Paraphrase> follows (not direct quotes)
The theories go that it killed those that touched it, not with divine wrath, but electrical discharge. Same for levelling enemies or whatever.

The cherubim on top were positive and negative terminals. When God appeared in a cloud between the cherubim and spoke to Moses, it was just Moses wacky imagination since the goings on between the cherubim were discharge related to overcharging the capacitor.
</Paraphrase>

Amazing what people come up with to explain away the divine.

I agree that the Ark could have been a capacitor that God instructed them to build. Of course, I have to stop short of folks saying that God communicating to Moses was just a bunch of electrical discharge.

To be fair, there is a statement on the TLC website that asks the question where ancient man would have gained the knowledge to build this to specifications EXCEPT from divine inspiration.

http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/ark/articles/ancient_print.html