The Baghdad Battery

In the Iraqi museum, in the city of Baghdad, there is a strange object on display, dated to around four thousand years before Christ.

At first glance it is unremarkable: a small vessel made of clay.

But inside the clay sits a hollow copper cylinder.

And inside the cylinder, held in place, there is a rod, also made of copper.

Put those parts together and there is really only one thing they describe. This is a battery. A cell built to produce electric current, the same arrangement of metals and a vessel that you would find in any simple battery made today.

Which would be unremarkable, except for one detail that refuses to go away. The object is dated to four thousand years before Christ. Someone, that long ago, with no theory of electricity and no name for it, appears to have built a thing that made it flow. Sit with that for a moment, and the question almost asks itself: what did they use it for, and who taught them how?