The Baghdad Battery is the name given to a set of three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron. It was discovered in present-day Khujut Rabu, Iraq in 1936, close to the metropolis of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian (150 BC – 223 AD) and Sasanian (224–650 AD) empires, and it is believed to date from either of these periods.
Its origin and purpose remain unclear. Wilhelm König, at the time director of the National Museum of Iraq, suggested that the object functioned as a galvanic cell, possibly used for electroplating, or some kind of electrotherapy. There is no electroplated object known from this period, and the claims are universally rejected by archaeologists. An alternative explanation is that it functioned as a storage vessel for sacred scrolls.
Ten similar clay vessels had been found earlier. Four were found in 1930 in Seleucia dating to the Sassanid period. Three were sealed with bitumen and contained a bronze cylinder, again sealed, with a pressed-in papyrus wrapper containing decomposed fiber rolls. They had been held in place with up to four bronze and iron rods sunk into the ground, and their cult meaning and use are inferred. Six other clay vessels were found nearby in Ctesiphon. Some had bronze wrappers with badly decomposed cellulose fibers. Others had iron nails or lead plates.
The artifact disappeared in 2003 during the US-led invasion of Iraq.[1]