The Baghdad Battery is the name given to a set of three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron.
In March 2012, Professor Elizabeth Stone of Stony Brook University, an expert on Iraqi archaeology, returning from the first archaeological expedition in Iraq after 20 years, stated that she does not know a single archaeologist who believed that these were batteries.
Some of the original 12 Baghdad Batteries can be seen at the National Museum of Iraq, which is currently closed due to the 2003 looting which saw nearly half it’s collection stolen. Discover Baghdad Battery in the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, Iraq: A 2200 year old vessel may have been able to keep a charge.
Even though there are very few documented experiments with the Baghdad Batteries, in 1978, Dr. Arne Eggebrecht from the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim conducted a few experiments with Baghdad Battery models (replica) using grape juice as an acidic liquid and thin layers of silver, which supposedly resulted in the production of electricity.
Baghdad Batteries can produce voltages from below one to almost two volts. To generate a voltage from a Baghdad Battery, fill the small jar with some kind of acidic liquid, such as vinegar or grapefruit juice. (5 volts was likely a typo in the original passage)
This famous primary battery used brine (solutions of table salt or sodium chloride in water) as the electrolyte and operated on the same galvanic principles as the Baghdad battery. In this case, zinc corroded (oxidised) as the anode under the influence of copper as the cathode.
A 2,200-year-old clay jar found near Baghdad, Iraq, has been described as the oldest known electric battery in existence. The clay jar and others like it are part of the holdings of the National Museum of Iraq and have been attributed to the …