abstract:The Baghdad Battery, sometimes referred to as the Parthian Battery, is the common name for a number of artifacts created in Mesopotamia, during the dynasties of Parthian or Sassanid or Persian Empire period (the early centuries AD), and probably discovered in 1936 in the village of Khuyut Rabbou'a, near Baghdad, Iraq. These artifacts came to wider attention in 1938 when Wilhelm König, the German director of the National Museum of Iraq, found the objects in the museum's collections.
FoundoutsideBaghdad, Iraqin 1936, theBaghdad Battery is asmallclayjar containingan iron rodsuspended in a copper cylinder whichis soldered shut and sealed with asphalt.