The greatest Iran’s Mysteries: Phartia’s Battery

PARTHIAN BATTERY

250BCE

Abstract: In June, 1936, while a new railway was being constructed near the city of Baghdad workers uncovered an ancient tomb. In the excavation that followed it was determined that the tomb was built during the Parthian dynastic era which ranged from 250 BC to AD 250 (+/-).

According to most texts the "voltic pile," or electric battery, was invented in 1800 by the Count Alassandro Volta. Volta had observed that when two dissimilar metal probes were placed against frog tissue, a weak electric current was generated. Volta discovered he could reproduce this current outside of living tissue by placing the metals in certain chemical solutions. For this, and his other work with electricity, we commemorate his name in the measurement of electric potential called the volt.

The little Parthian jar found in ancient Western Iranian territories of Greater Iran (now Iraq), suggests that Volta didn't invent the battery, but reinvented it. The jar was first described by German archaeologist Wilhelm Konig in 1938.  The jar was found in Khujut Rabu just outside modern Baghdad and is composed of a clay jar with a stopper made of asphalt. Sticking through the asphalt is an iron rod surrounded by a copper cylinder. When filled with vinegar - orany other electrolytic solution - the jar produces about 1.5 to 2.0 volts.

The jars are believed to be about 2000 years old from the Parthian period (The third Iranian dynasty ruled roughly 248 BCE to 28 April CE 224),  and consist of an earthenware shell, with a stopper composed of asphalt. Sticking through the top of the stopper is an iron rod. Inside the jar the rod is surrounded by a cylinder of copper. Konig thought these things looked like electric batteries and published a paper on the subject in 1940.

World War II prevented immediate follow-up on the jars, but after hostilities ceased, an American, Willard F. M. Gray of the General Electric High Voltage Laboratory in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, built some reproductions. When filled with an electrolyte like grape juice, the devices produced about two volts. 

Not all scientists accept the "electric battery" description for the jars. If they were batteries, though, who made them and what were they used for?

Unfortunately, there is no written record as to the exact function of the jar, due to destruction of Iranian literary sources and libraries by Arabs upon invasion of Iranian territories in 7th century, but the best guess is that it was a type of battery.

Scientists believe the batteries (if that is their correct function) were used to electroplate items such as putting a layer of one metal (gold) onto the surface of another (silver), a method still practiced in Greater Iran today.

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Science/battery.htm

OMG ! not again

iam not attacking anything here,

its not iranian invention because its a development of a sumerian invention.

that what it says in the link Land of Arayan posted in the first post.

and Sumerian weren't Iranians.

and in the Middle east there were people other than Iranians and other than Semitics, and one of those people were the early Sumerians, who later became heavely effected by the Semitics.

Why do you say it is not an Iranian invention? First it was found in an Iranian Tmob, Modern day Iraq was part of Iran. Even better let be show you the link!

here the link

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/parthian_battery .php

The jars are believed to be about 2000 years old from the Parthian period (The third Iranian dynasty ruled roughly 248 BCE to 28 April CE 224), and consist of an earthenware shell, with a stopper composed of asphalt. Sticking through the top of the stopper is an iron rod. Inside the jar the rod is surrounded by a cylinder of copper. Konig thought these things looked like electric batteries and published a paper on the subject in 1940.

My first Post have been Started by this Article

& now My 100th post!!!!!

oh ramin

not that easy

i thought it is Iranian?

Well your reasoning for making such an assertion is at best dubious. Regardless, the invetion is part of the regions heritage irrespective of what race the guy who invented it was.

the source u provided is saying

as far as i understood this article is saying that Sumer , Babylonia and Assyria are Iranians?

and the rest he is talking about Elam which is not Sumer!!

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this one is from Britannica

Sumer

site of the earliest known civilization, located in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, in the area that later became Babylonia and is now southern Iraq from aroundBaghdad to the Persian Gulf.

Sumer was first settled between 4500 and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who did not speak the Sumerian language. These people now are called proto-Euphrateans or Ubaidians, for the village Al-Ubaid, where their remains were first discovered. The Ubaidians were the first civilizing force in Sumer, draining the marshes for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery. After the Ubaidian immigration to Mesopotamia, various Semitic peoples infiltrated their territory, adding their cultures to the Ubaidian culture, and creating a high pre-Sumerian civilization.

The people called Sumerians, whose language became the prevailing language of the territory, probably came from around Anatolia, arrivingin Sumer about 3300 BC. By the 3rd millennium BC the country was the site of at least 12 separate city-states: Kish, Erech, Ur, Sippar, Akshak, Larak, Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa. Each of thesestates comprised a walled city and its surrounding villages and land, and each worshiped its own deity, whose temple was the central structure of the city. Political power originally belonged to the citizens, but, as rivalry between the various city-states increased, each adoptedthe institution of kingship. An extant document, The Sumerian King List, records that eight kings reigned before the great Flood.

After the Flood, various city-states and their dynasties of kings temporarily gained power over the others. The first king to unite the separate city-states was Etana, ruler of Kish (c. 2800 BC). Thereafter, Kish, Erech, Ur, and Lagash vied for ascendancy for hundreds of years, rendering Sumer vulnerable to external conquerors, first the Elamites (c. 2530�2450 BC) and later the Akkadians, led by their king Sargon (reigned 2334�2279 BC). Although Sargon's dynasty lasted only about 100 years, it united the city-states and created a model of government that influenced all of Middle Eastern civilization.

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and about the Sumerian language

this is from Encarta

this from Encarata.

Sumerian Language, language of the peoples of the ancient kingdom of Sumer in Mesopotamia. Its vocabulary, grammar, and syntax do not appear to be related to those of any other known language.

The oldest language preserved in writing, Sumerian was written in cuneiform script. Its earliest records date from about 3000 bc in southern Mesopotamia; after about 2000 bc it was no longer spoken, having been replaced by Akkadian or Assyro-Babylonian, but it continued in use as a literary language until cuneiform writing died out (c. 1st century bc). There are four recognized periods of Sumerian: Archaic Sumerian (3100-2500 bc); Old or Classical Sumerian (2500-2300 bc); New Sumerian (2300-2000 bc); and Post-Sumerian. The existence of the language�and of the Sumerian culture�was subsequently forgotten until cuneiform was deciphered in the 19th century, revealing an unexpected language among the expected ones.

Sumerian is an agglutinative language, rather than an inflected one, such as one of the Indo-European or Semitic languages. Generally speaking, the root words are not subject to inflective change. The basic grammatical units consist of word complexes rather than individual words, and these grammatical units usually retain their independent structures. The grammatical structure of Sumerian resembles that of other agglutinative languages, such as Turkish, Hungarian, and some Caucasian languages.

Microsoft � Encarta � Premium Suite 2005. � 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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i dont see that

Sumer  or Sumerians are Iranians