Did Ancient Cultures Know about Electricity?

Modern civilizations tend to believe that they are superior to previous cultures and that these past, great civilizations were primitive. We think many of technological wonders were revealed only to us and not to any prior cultures. However, archeological findings in the 20th century have shown this is not the case. Take for instance electricity, which is the source of all power in any modern society.

In 1938, Dr. Wilhelm Konig, an Austrian archaeologist, found a clay pot with a copper cylinder which He recognized as a crude battery in the basement of the museum according to an article entitled The Modern Past (© 1996 http://www.paradigm-sys.com/ae/library.html) by Lamuir G. Janku. Now many ancient batteries have been unearthed in Iraq and are in the Baghdad museum. They all have been dated to a period between 248 B.C.- 226 A.D. All of these batteries appear to show evidence of corrosion by some acid agent. Mr. Janku’s article points out that many scholars believe that ancient civilizations used crushed wine grapes as the substance capable of conducting electricity. In modern science the substance is called an electrolyte.

Finding ancient metal artifacts, such as copper vases covered with silver, led many experts to believe that these ancient civilizations discovered some form of an electroplating process. Now electroplating is defined as the act of coating something with metal (such as silver over copper) by means of an electric current according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (15th edition Vol. 6; p. 691 Macropaedia). Much of our modern jewelry is electroplated.

Objects found in diggings, in Egypt, also appear to show traces of an electroplating process. This means that these civilizations had some form of electricity from batteries to perform this process or they had another process that mimicked electroplating. Now we all may wonder how was this technology revealed to them since modern electroplating was not started until the 1800 when A. Volta discovered the battery. If the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians had the battery first, than A. Volta did not discover, but rediscovered it.

they really need to teach these sort of things in school...

Kids chances are if your teachers tell you something in school, thier wrong... wrong.. wrong... wrong.

Yes you're right kishin ...but how many people are willing to stand up for the truth.

... o_O you can't be serious...

even if they *did* come up with an electroplating process, which i *highly* doubt they did... (you can plate something by merely *dipping* it in melted silver... electroplating merely makes it a stronger bond...), the odds of them using it together with a 'battery' doesn't mean they used it for ANYTHING useful... Heron invented the steam engine in the first century AD, and used it to make a *children's top*, and nothing more... and especially considering the ancient idea of matter, i highly doubt they'd grow to understand anything about the battery besides 'it's magical, and it's shiny, and it hurts me when i touch it'...

o_O if your link actually worked, i'd check it out and see what you're talking about, but it sounds an awful lot like a sealing cylinder... o_O

Wow, CIV, that's really NEAT

Here's something else...but not as premeditated:

I heard that they can decode sounds from pottery grooves from waaaay back. It works on the principle of the vinyl records.

Cool, eh?

Great find, btw.

We were taught of ancient devices claimed to be used in holding energy back in highschool, both in science and history classes. We were also taught that a lot of the more elaborate claims were just silly, sensationalist, and based entirely on historically ignorant extrapolation. I don't recall any nefarious teachers attempting to teach me the false history of electricity. Unless perhaps the US education system and subsystems raise Ben Franklin on high?

Wow, that thing about hearing sounds from the pottery is REALLY cool, most awesome.........I never really thought about all that. Nice

Actually, they did. The Ancient Egyptians made there batteries from Nickel tubes charged by the flow of the water from the Nile. And no they didnt invent it. Thats a common misconception, they may have discovered it, but they didnt create it. And besides, they may know that it shocked you if you touched it or something, but they didnt understand the concept that it was electrically charged particles, and they didnt know that it could be used to harvest energy.

Edit: The batteries they found were dated back to 500 BC too..

really? cool. ^_^

it's a real shame they couldn't fine a use for it... though it would have probably been illogical for them to have tried to use it as a useful source of energy... too much ionic tinkering with the nile wouldn't be a nice thing... o_O

meh, not as though they needed it. and invention is, after all, the mother of necessity... :0p

Well, even if they had put it to use, there is no way they could have developed a good and effective distribution system. Not to mention the lack of power bateris have, they always need to be recharged wich is guessing by their cir****ace, something that would take alot of time of effort.... it wasnt worth it.

i'm not sure if they knew exactly what electricity was but i do know that an ancient greek cure for muscle pain was to stand on a living sting ray (or a relative of a sting ray that's name i forgot).

The effect was similar to what we have today. It would send mild electrical pulses up through their bodies making them feel better.