S1E16 - The Baghdad Battery: Did Ancient Parthians Discover Electricity?

In 1936, a railway worker’s shovel clinked against a 2,000-year-old clay pot near Baghdad. Inside was an iron rod encased in a copper cylinder. To the archaeologist who found it, this simple object bore a shocking resemblance to a galvanic cell. Did the ancient Parthians truly discover electricity centuries before Volta and Galvani? This episode digs into the heart of this archaeological mystery. We travel to the 1930s discovery by Wilhelm König in the village of Khujut Rabu, examining the exact construction of these enigmatic artifacts found alongside more typical relics in an ancient tomb. We explore the compelling the...