The Baghdad Battery or Parthian Battery Persian: باتری اشکانی ،is the name given to an artifact consisting of a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron fixed together with bitumen. It was discovered in present-day Khujut Rabu, Iraq in 1936, close to the ancient city of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian (150 BC – 223 AD) and Sasanian (224–650 AD) empires, and it is believed to date from e. Physical description and datingAustrian archaeologist Wilhelm König's description of the find, translated into English, included: In. .
Similar vessels, which can be distinguished primarily by their contents, had previously been found and examined more closely: Four clay vessels were excavated at in 1930 under the archaeological direction of. .
Its origin and purpose remain unclear. Wilhelm König was an assistant at the in the 1930s. He had observed a number of very fine silver objects from ancient Iraq, plated with very thin layers of gold, and s.
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