Awful Archaeology Ep. 6: The Baghdad Battery
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2022
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VIDEO INFO
In this episode of Awful Archaeology we discuss the mysterious discovery known as The Baghdad Battery. This artifact was unearthed from the ancient city of Al-Madain and has been identified by conspiracy theorists and scientists alike as the remains of an ancient battery. Join me as we unravel the mystery surrounding this ancient piece of history as we uncover what it was, what it wasn't and what it could have been.
If you want to create your own ice cold Baghdad Battery Cocktail, check out this recipe, generously created by @newportrifoodie8384 miniminuteman/sta...
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THANK YOUS
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CITATIONS AND REFERENCES
corrosion-doctors.org/Batteri...
www.uh.edu/engines/epi1972.htm
www.unmuseum.org/bbattery.htm
www.discoveryuk.com/mysteries...
www.badarchaeology.com/out-of-...
www.nmfrc.org/pdf/psf2002/050...
link.springer.com/content/pdf...
www.rsc.org/periodic-table/el....
www.tiktok.com/@dastarchild/v...
• History Documentary: A...
theconversation.com/fifteen-y...
www.theatlantic.com/internati...
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Oooh ooh i hope ground news considers a newsmax lie to be "just the other side" of a left wing fact based opinion
Hey. It's the guy you quoted.
I feel heard.
Thank you.
Next time ask them for a referral code please! I downloaded the app then deleted the app so I could use your link
I believe you wrote the po box differently switching the 6 and 8 between the chalkboard one and digital one.
You do great work!
To gold plate you only need 3-6v which is possible from 5 or 6 batteries linked in series. However a copper/iron lemon battery will only produce 0.00024 Amps. You need 2-3 Amps for plating. If the battery had a similar output to a lemon battery you'd need around 20,000 batteries in parallel to provide 2.5 Amps. This would only give you 1v. To achieve the 3-6v needed for plating, they would have needed multiple banks of 20k parallel batteries. Meaning anywhere between 60,000 - 120,000 Baghdad batteries to provide 3-6v and 2.5 Amps.
We have a joke in Romania about how advanced were ancient civilizations.
One day, German archeologists found at 5 m deep, some copper wire. They concluded their ancestors, the Goths and Vandals, had some primitive subterranean telephony system.
Not wanted to be under Germans, French archeologists dug at 10 m deep and found some glass remains. They concluded their ancestors, the Celts and Gauls, had optic fiber communication.
Not wanted to be bellow Germans and French, Romanian archeologists, dug to 15 m, nothing, 20 m, still nothing, 30 m nothing yet. They concluded, our ancestors, the Dacians and Gets, had wireless communication.
Lmao nu ma așteptam să găsesc un roman pe aici. Nice one
That’s a great joke but since you said Romania just wanted to say that I’ve just learned of the “Varna culture” of the balkans where they were goldsmithing in 4000bc and they’ve found more gold in one grave there than the rest of the world combined for that time frame.
Brilliant, love it!
I'm sure they did have wireless communication, aka blowing trumpets, pounding on drums or just plain shouting.
@@russlehman2070 lol I even know such a shouting signal system
Dodgy archaeology aside, I love the mental image of 200BC silversmithing apprentices daring each other to lick the tingle jar.
Hazing the new guy.
"licking the tingle jar" sounds... very lewd.
"Hormizd, It's time to have a lick on the tingle Jar!"
"Yes, dear..."
New archeological headcannon the Baghdad Batteries were made by ancient frat bros after too much wine
I'd lick the Zap Jar. Sounds kinda fun
my personal favorite theory about the baghdad batteries is that some ancient guy was running an experiment to see if he could make anything cool happen and that they didnt "really" do anything. Just some sort of fuck around and find out moment
I think that's what happened to
I honestly think this is the 'solution' to tons of historical mysteries. Ancient people were still people just like us and i don't know about you but i do goofy shit all the fuckin time for no real reason.
Literally jist some kid fucking around with pots and chemicals they found in the garage 😅
So uh. We've gotten a follow up video since this one was posted, and we have a MUCH more likely answer- might wanna give it a watch.
Basically Dr. Stone used that as a plot point. A kid named Chrome started to collect cool looking rocks and that's how he discovered science
I’m a literure teacher and I just taught Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” today; when my student asked why there was all this knocking and curtains fluttering but nothing there, I just told him, “Spooky vibes. Poe was big into spooky vibes.”
Sometimes the casual explanation is clearest. 😂
A liturere teacher? Really? Wtf is liturere?
@@tonyjohnson8752 Just shoo. Nobody likes a grammer Nazi
people make typos
@@tonyjohnson8752 It is hilarious that you point out how they misspelled literature as 'literure' only for you to misspell the word even more. You wrote 'liturere', whether you were trying to write what they did or the correct word you failed.
@@trempor_9068 I was trying to spell it like they did. Oops.
I'm reminded of the old joke: If an archeologist says something was for used "ritual" or "ceremonial" purposes, they have no fucking idea what it is. Unless they say it was used for "fertility rites", that means they know exactly what it is but don't want to write "Ancient Dildo" in the logs.
Not a joke, but the cold hard truth
Same as field biologists; Specimen released in field- It means you got bitten and dropped the fucker.
Impromtu Disection means you stepped on the critter.
@@Burning_Dwarf If the critter has some kind of fancy crest or some other strange protuberance. It is for sexual selection.
Damnit, I posted the same thing, then saw your post. How dare you! :P
Fuckin' Frances Pryor, man.
...who's joking? That's the truth.
You can tell how much fun this video is gonna be by the number of undone buttons on Milo's shirt. This gonna be awesome!
*bonk*
It’s like a barometer for video interestingness. The less buttons the better. If you ever see a thumbnail with my top button done, don’t even bother.
It has a 90's magician look to it.
@@miniminuteman773 “Shirtless Archeologist rambles about the Rosetta Stone for 45 minutes”
@@miniminuteman773 if you put your hair in a bun would you consider that an extra button?
Speaking about the expression "it's ceremonial", I once read a book written by a current Swedish archaeologist where he constantly called things ceremonial without having any more evidence supporting that idea. Sometimes it made sense and other times, it really, really didn't. So nowadays I'm almost allergic to those words. Thanks, way too famous Swedish archaeologist.
Edit: The effect wars have on cultural artifacts will always sadden me, no matter in what country that happens. I do not want to think about it too often, because that way lies deep sadness. I despise looters so much.
If they've ruled out 'living quarters' (ie, beds, hearth, etc.) and food storage (ie, granaries, dry stores), and animal corrals (ie, fencing, dung, animal feed, etc.) what does that really leave?
@@kelliepatrick519
Everything else. Doesn't necessarily mean it's ceremonial.
You didn't answer the question. What else is there?
@@kelliepatrick519
But that's the thing, some of the things he found did fall under one of those categories.
@@kelliepatrick519 are you for real asking random youtube users questions that would be tough for a professional archaeologist? 🤡
It's so sad the Egyptians had lightbulbs and the Iraqis had power, but they never met to combine them. Imagine how much more advanced we would be if they'd had that chocolate-peanut butter moment!
This man is so educational and he has the aesthetic sensibilities of a gay pirate. Truly an icon.
Most pirates were gay.... what else are 50+ guys gonna do stuck out at sea?
Soo.... a pirate? lol
@@simonhandy962 mermaids, according to Columbus the Manatee Boinker.
@@lordfelidae4505love the word boinker lmao
Butt pirate? That is a great shirt.
It's an ancient paper shredder. When the ancient FBI was coming for ancient Enron, they dumped out their pots, filled them with acid, and started destroying the papyrus trail.
I know you meant it as a joke, but I kind of wonder if it was something along those lines. An elaborate, ceremonial (😋 I know, I know), definite way to destroy a papyrus in this world and the next. I wonder if they DID put a papyrus in the jar with acid, maybe it was a curse or a broken oath or treaty or something. An acid paper shredder that might give someone a little zappy zap if they picked it up and tried to open it. Like if simply burning the scroll wasn't enough and you just wanted a little something *extra* so that even the gods couldn't read it (burnt offerings went right up to the gods, after all).
@@octoscorpion2506 probably wasn't, judging that no acid they had would be strong enough to damage the cellulose the papyrus is primarily made up of. Heck, few acids WE have would do it. Cellulose is tough stuff, that's why trees use it.
Papyrus trail. 👌
@@blakksheep736 Them dang trees usin up all the cellulose like that
Ammonia or bleach would do a better job of that than acid. Bases are much more destructive to organic matter than acids, in general. And ammonia is easily acquired from urine, so frankly it’s more likely that they just had stale urine on hand for its many varied uses than some chemically useful acid, the most likely sources for which would be fruit juice or vomit. Not exactly likely that they’d intentionally vomit to acquire hydrochloric acid, either. So it’s really just fruit, which likely wasn’t very powerful acid, and certainly wasn’t strong enough to break down cellulose, or the fruits would dissolve themselves.
To be fair..."All Aperture Science personality constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic, low power environments of as few as 1.1 volts."
haha, yes! another personal that recognized "1.1 volts"
Was looking for someone to say this
When I was 17 I was put into a boot camp program..it was basically boot camp for 6 months for kids who would otherwise go to jail...we had a kadrey who was a army ranger..he fought in the Mountains of Iraq or was it iran something like that. I don't really remember..but I remember him having a life changing talk with me and during that talk he told me something that stuck with me forever..he said him and his team would sit in the mountains and watch cave systems and the taliban would have carts filled to the top with stuff they found in those caves and they would sell them on the black market to fund themselves he said if a archeologist saw what they saw get bombed they would have a heart attack..its sad to think about..but it's also sad to think about the stuff that's in private collections that the world will never see
The Taliban were in Afghanistan...
And you spelled cadre wrong.
Biology:
"What's that for"
"Dunno...mating display?"
"Of course!"
Archeology:
"What's this for?
"Dunno..religious ceremony?"
"of course!"
Ahhhh, science
exception is birds, those guys making human courting look easy
Physics:
“What causes that”
“Dunno... dark matter?”
“Wow, so cool”
Anthropology
"Why do they do that?"
"Dunno...for sex?"
"Of Course!"
Conspiracy theories:
"What is this thing?"
"Dunno... aliens or illuminati?"
"Why not both?"
Psychology:
"Why do we do x"
"Dunno...youre probably mentally unwell?"
"Yea, that makes sense."
Milo is becoming more unhinged as this series progresses.
Can’t wait to see how manic they will be at the end of the series
Pretty sure this is just so they can survive with their insanity intact.
And that's a good thing. 😀
It comes with the territory of science and archeology in general
Never met any archeologist that isn't absolutely unhijnged or are the guy who opened the first jurassic park
If the jar was indeed a “battery”, I can’t imagine it was anything more than a curiosity or party trick made to make people go “huh, that’s kinda neat I guess”
If the Parthians did use the Bagdad battery for material plating it was probably for galvanization not gold plating. Yes this requires zinc, but Zinc was commonly traded in the Mediterranean at the time (the Romans used it to make Brass). Galvanizing can be done with low voltages (it just takes longer), yet galvanizing tools makes them last longer before rusting. A galvanized tool will not rust until the entire galvanization layer has broken down, after which it will start to rust normal, but the break down of the galvanized layer would explain would explain why no examples of galvanized tools can be found as the galvanized layer would have already broken down completely.
not to mention that, being batteries, they can be connected in series to up the voltage. To me that was the largest oversight in this video, even if it doesn't necessarily change the conclusion.
honestly this is the most believable theory to me other than "some guy was just messing around with some pots and stuff". ancient people were really resourceful and i wouldn't be surprised if someone out there figured this out just by accident
I love he introduced a drink gimmick and then proceeded to not make another epsiode for at least a year
He had some drinkin' to do.🍻
The demon drink...
Probably that allergy
He's fiiiiiiine.
It took him a while to come up with another drink.
I just had a realization: this could be a fermentation crock. Vinegar is a fermented food after all. The copper and metal part be used to keep plant matter submergered, or as a gas valve. Those metals might have been used because they could be sterilized easily, or because they would react to the vinegar when it was ready, acting as an indicator the vinegar was ready. After vinegar is done fermenting, it’s sealed up to keep it fresh until it’s ready for use. The papyrus might have been used as a permeable cover to keep dust out without blocking air from the culture (or as a label, or to pull out a bit of the vinegar to test its taste)
This is the theory I was waiting to be explored as well! The moment I heard wine and vinegar I was like, "Oh! So fermentation..." Maybe we'll get a part 2 lol
That is the most convincing theory I've heard about the thing.
Ok, you sold me
As someone that makes wine and vinegar, yeah that sounds about right~
Adding to that copper is also a fungicide and reacting with the acid would dissolve it into the liquid and the food. Its not exactly healthy but then romans were eating from lead plates hundreds of years later and even modern humans use tons of toxic materials because of convenience or because the long term effects werent known like asbestos or plastic softeners
This is what I love about discussing sciences. Sometimes you get things wrong, and this kind of civil discourse is soooo refreshing. Thank you for showing this and talking about it!
Just watched part 2 thought I was there lol
As a former brickmaking temp looking to possibly enter the field of historic masonry, 3:41 actually sounds really interesting to me.
The fact that you said it was single span, unreinforced brickwork would seem to imply that the only thing holding that massive arch up, essentially is the strength and geometry of the bricks themselves, and that... I mean, that's not nothing.
"is it racist to be loved?" has to seriously be the greatest line I have ever heard. Milo's supposed wife is the MVP of this video 😂😂
Well, is it?
@@alastorlapid2365 No, it's just the natural order of things.
@@SerialElfYT xenophobia is natural, racism can only exist with an understanding of what races are which people wouldn't, if they hadn't been taught by racists.
@@SineN0mine3 Did you even read what I replied too? The originating quest was "Is it racist to be loved?"
I'm sure it was making the connection from "someone who is woke to racism is also woke to sexism and it's sexist to have a woman make you something for related".
Not that that is any more thought through given how the interaction went and how he's carrying himself in all his videos.
The Baghdad battery wasn’t used for a light! That’s just ridiculous! That carving wasn’t a lightbulb.
It was their highly advanced snake launcher, which they used to fight off the ancient aliens. The Baghdad battery only put out one volt because that’s all it needed. They were that advanced.
The Pharoh's AA gun
@@captainducktape689 The wrath of Ra
@@Dr.STorch *something something* landing pads *something something* Stargate
Well look at portal 2 the whole compund thing runs off 1 volt
So it wasn’t a battery but a battery!
The Motel of the Mysteries plug literally made me gasp - I read that book once as a kid and I've thought about it roughly once a year since then but I've never been able to find it!
In the manufacture of gas dispensers (or pumps), one task is to peel the backing material off of adhesive vinal graphics and stick them onto the plastic pump doors. A tool we used for this is a 3M deflater tool. Basically an ink pen like device with a needle, that comes out and retracts. At a cost of around $35 each.
Wanting one of my own, I made one from a ball point ink pen, a copper or brass tube, and a stainless steel sewing needle to replace the ball point pen's ink barrel.
To solder the stainless steel needle into the brass or copper tube, required that I electroplate it with copper first.
A plastic container, a bit of copper wire as my source of copper, And a liquid copper sulfate solution obtained from an aquarium supply store mixed with salt water And a used AC to DC wall wart, allowed this.
The small AC to DC power converter was 6 volts, And it allowed me to copper plate the needle and solder it securely into the tube. The voltage and amperage determined the time required to coat the stainless steel with copper electro plating. 6 volts took about 15 minutes.
6 volts @ 200 mA I considered the maximum save DC voltage I considered for doing this electroplating experiment, it could have been less and just taken longer. There are other chemical mixtures that will also do this.
As a builder of antennas, I still hold this copper plating method in reserve for soldering dis-similar metals together. I am not an academic, I as a mechanic and electrician, simply made things work.
I think something that gets overlooked by archaelogists is that sometimes, artifacts could be one off experiments. The Bagdad Battery could have legitimately been an experiment with electricity that, for one reason or another, was abandoned. We usually want to assume that things survive history because they worked, or were significant. But sometimes things just survive. Just a thought.
And also another thought:
Those experiments estimated the output of a theoretical battery with local materials around 1V. Let's imagine old folks were really efficient and used nice metals and concentrated acids. Let's give them 300% efficiency, and say the battery has 3V.
How would you detect 3V? We have amazing led lights capable of working of 1V, but how would you, as a normal person, detect 3V?
1V is barely detectable by a tongue. It feels slightly sour, because "sour-ness" is just our brains interpreting free available protons in acids / from current. 3V is noticeably sour, but you've just poured real acid into the battery, it wouldn't feel strange.
So how would you demonstrate this to someone for any purpose, let alone use it?
Yeah, its like, people forget that in history inventors like Hero existed, who just used their time and money to invent things more to prove they could than because they were going to change the world with practical applications (He invented a very rudimentary rotary steam engine and proved you could get useful work out of steam, then moved on to other projects and his mathematics)
i would post that except where is the documentation of any experimenter
@@Dorsidwarf the aeolipile. Hero (or Heron) invented it as a toy. He invented a whole bunch of impressive things, not all for toys, including the first coin operated vending machine. Not devised by Hero, but another example of a seeming one off, and probably the best example because the technology seems far ahead of other things at the time is the Antikythera mechanism. It's apparently not all that technologically advanced for the day or even all that hard to make, but the concept/design was far more complex than anything else found at that time.
If you presented these things to me out of context (as in, tiny jars, one with papyrus in it, one with traces of acid, and with a tube/cylinder combo that fit into each other), my first guess wouldn't have been "battery", but "some kind of tool for secret correspondence".
Roll the papyrus around the cylinder, put it into the sealed tube, and immerse it into a jar full of acid, then seal it before sending it. At this point the only way to safely unseal the message is by breaking the jar itself, as if you tried to get the tube out first, the acid gets to the papyrus, and by the time you unroll it from the cylinder, the message is destroyed. This way nobody could sneakily open the message on the way to its destination and then re-seal it, making it a counter-espionage tool, and there are no records of this, because it was a state secret and/or only used in a limited fashion or a short time.
Now, I'm not saying that the jars were used this way, I'm just trying to illustrate that there's a lot of potential alternative utilities between "it's ancient high tech" and "it's ceremonial".
"How'd they do it in total darkness?!?" So I guess people back then knew how to create giant light bulbs and electricity to power them but fire is a fringe concept.
There’s no soot on the ceiling is what they’re talking about. They used a clean burning oil, is the explanation why
@@eugenideddis Right? Oil lamps are quite literally the most stereotypical Middle Eastern object.
Also, I imagine wood isn't something that's plentiful in Mesopotamia and the Levant. So wood are reserved for making building frames, weapons (spear shaft, arrows, etc) and Fuel for high intensity heat (cooking, furnaces) than to use them for light
how did the workers in the inner chambers of the pyramids see in there while carving stone for hours on end? theres not enough ventilation to light fires in there you will suffocate before long
@@pilot.wav_theory The Pyramids ain't built from up to bottom... It's built from the Bottom up... You know, like any buildings built on this planet ever?
So, by this very BASIC logic, the inner chamber walls were built and carved before the "roof" (the tip of the Pyramid) and ceilings are set... That means the ceilings are not there yet, so you can work by using, you guess it... Sunlight, Woahhh! Mind blown 🤯🤯
I know right? Really Amazing groundbreaking stuff that took a lot of brain power to think about
@@pilot.wav_theory A few actual facts:
-Never once, not in any capacity, has the remnant or mention of anything electrical ever been described in the times of which the pyramids were built. Not one single piece of supporting theory, not a scrap material goods.
-The only thing anybody has to go on is the aforementioned artifact of which dates to a different time period in a far away region.
-The drawing in the temple literally describe what they are. There's absolutely no confusion on what they represent.
As noted in the video and elsewhere, the temple carvings were likely done before they roof was put on, providing ample light. each chamber in the pyramids would have had a ton of time before they were covered in which they could have been carved. And even so, oil lamps won't burn up all of the O2 in the chambers. They were not sealed off to the outside world until everything was done.
One other thing: Unless they had some kind of hyper efficient filament technology, they weren't going to be producing much light at all. As such those batteries wouldn't have enough capacity to last very long. So there'd be massive caches of spent batteries laying around.
Thanks algorithm me for bringing me to this channel. Man I love history and ancient conspiracies. This channel has the perfect mix of seriousness/facts and comedy. Love it.
Your one liners are truly epic. Also, the drinks "themed" per show is a fantastic idea! I'm looking forward to each one, and I'll be drinking said glass during the show each time now. Kick ass job Newportrifoodie
Hi! Physicist with chemistry experience here! One thing I’d like to say is that I have no problem believing that ancient cultures made things that fit our current definition of “battery” just by chance. I’d actually be genuinely shocked if accidental “batteries” weren’t somewhat of a common occurrence. The question is what was it USED for? A battery is something that uses a chemical reaction to get charged particles moving. A “battery” in and of itself isn’t that special: two types of metal which act as “opposites” in terms of how well they want to grab electrons and a medium for them to travel through is it! The context that matters here, is that finding a “battery”, no matter how well it works, is almost certainly meaningless without a circuit.
I remember early batteries were used to make animal muscles twitch. It could have just been a "neat trick" people were doing in the kitchen.
_"Current_ definition of 'battery'."
I see what you did, there!
and I mean, when your cathode is a copper tube, your anode is an iron rod, and your electrolyte is just a bath of lemon juice, it doesn't exactly make a very good battery, and I'm pretty sure it won't power any alien device, make a led light up maybe, but it won't send you to space. that is why some people proposed that it was used for some kind of galvanization processes that was discovered by accident, but I'm not sure that is how galvanization works, unless what you are trying to galvanize are the iron rods, and we would have found evidence of galvanized metals.
as a historian - I am reminded about the stories of Ben Franklin and his batteries - he would hook them up to play pranks on his friends and enemies... and to watch frog twitch under an electric probe.
@@keithlarsen7557 hey look at me reactivating the nerves of a dead creature for my entertainment, we have truly forsaken God/j
As someone with adhd who has made a lot of random useless things in my lifetime, I like to imagine that some of the items found today are simply just an ancient adhd project 😂
Mood
We may not _need_ this kind of All Yesterdays movement in archaeology, but it would be more fun.
I'd watch ancient adhd over ancient aliens anyday
My theory is it was like when you were little and made "potions" of random shit you found in the yard
@@silhouetted_shadow3486 I preferred mud pies. But I'm happy to say my cooking has drastically improved. It at least is no longer being used to fill holes in driveways.
I didn’t remember or recognize Motel of the Mysteries until he showed excerpts but I think I read that in 1st or 2nd grade and looking back it undoubtedly influenced my take on sci fi. What an absolute Star Trek episode of a book /pos
"Stole this pillar from a gravesite. Ah yes, it looks so much better in my living room."
My first thought: "Ah, proof positive that he really is an archeologist."
Lol
I once heard "The only difference between grave robbing and archaeology is how well you document it."
the ceremonial issue reminds me of the fact that a lot of ancient houses in scotland open to the east, with some historians linking this to a worship of the rising sun (to be fair, there is a lot of east-west burials so there is some evidence) - ignoring the fact that we're a rainy island facing the atlantic and that most of the wind and the rain would have come from the west, something you wouldn't really want your entry facing
Praise the sun tho! Am I right??🤣🤣🤦♂️
Exactly
Both could be true, but I find that ceremony follows practicality. As in something that we do as a ceremonial thing had a far simpler and purely practical purpose at one point that led to the addition of the ceremonial aspects.
I also don't like the fact that we always chalk stuff up to religious purpose, like, maybe humans just like being bathed by sunlight when they start their day... We have a lot of costumes that are present for long periods of time that have more to do with broader cultural identity than with just religious.
this reminds me of a funny thing i saw like this once, where there was some sort of ancient homes being studied. they kept finding them to frequently have knives tucked away on top of beams that supported the framework of the house, way up high at the ceiling. they wondered what it could mean, debated if it was a religious tradition, what the symbolism could represent, and so on until one of them realized "oh, duh. they had kids. they didn't want children to get into the knives so theyd keep them out of reach."
I like the fact you say that you don't know what item was used for. You are the first one to admit that (on this or many other things) and not try to fill the gap.
I love how Milo has, at the same time, all the chill and no chill. Makes me wish I had history teachers this cool when I went to school…
The battery as a battery could have been a novelty for the rich. “ Ooh it gives me the tingles.” And by sheer chance it survived.
That WAS the original use for batteries in the 1700's.
@@Sorenzo w h a t
yea, sometimes Humans just make shit they think is cool.
i vote for ancient sex toy.
At 1.1 volts, you wouldn't even feel it.
I think some ancient guy made these as a startup and pitched them to the ancient middle eastern version of Shark Tank. But then ancient Mark Cuban pointed out that there wasn't anything for the batteries to do because light bulbs wouldn't be invented for over a thousand years. And that's why there's only 4.
Frankly I think you've solved it
If only they'd consulted with the Egyptians.
But.... but... electroplating!
No point in inventing a can opener until the can has first been invented, yes.
*Sheik Tank
Milo - I enjoy listening to you immensely! Thank you. Shout out to Logan Delp. That music plays in my head a lot. It's really simple and sweet, a lovely piece of music.
Read about the Baghdad battery years ago. On listverse I think about the top ten advanced archeological devices that defy explanation. Good to know it doesn’t defy explanation
Most of the time people try to eliminate echo in videos but it honestly just makes this feel more like a classroom
Lol this is such a back handed complement.
I never really noticed this - but u really like the echo too!! Thanks for pointing it out xD
In sound editing you can always add echos via sfx but you can't remove them
His partner's cameo was just adorable. We stan a loving relationship
Yeah she cute
She is. But the two of them are even cuter together.
That's racist tho
A wonderful marriage
@Oliver's 50th Account what the actual fuck are you even trying to say
It was actually really satisfying to hear "I don't know" as an answer, instead of accepting or making up something half-baked just to have an explanation.
Also ooh a PO Box, I wish I knew where my old copy of Chariots of the Gods was, I'd totally send it. I was such a huge fan of Erich von Daniken when I was in high school.
I love the way you present material, and with that said, I wish your team the best, especially your team!
The papyrus storage device theory actually makes some sense to me. I'm an engineer and one of the things we do with underground piping and electrical wiring is called cathodic protection. It involves inducing a very small electrical current in the soil. Electrons will naturally move in wet soil according to a difference in charges, especially those between a metal and naturally-occurring salts. This movement will corrode most metals over time, and can also accelerate disintegration of organic materials. In cathodic protection we introduce materials (anodes) which the current "prefers" over the piping, so it will corrode those sacrificial anodes rather than your functional equipment.
If this was the idea for these devices, you wouldn't put your papyrus in the same jar as the acid, but rather place a functioning battery device nearby your storage jar to protect it. And a voltage of 1V would probably be enough for that purpose. The setting fits the logic here. But obviously I'm speculating; as you said, without context we will never be sure exactly what these jars were intended to be for or if the inventor even understood what they did. But this hypothesis at least is well established in modern science and engineering.
That is an fascinating take and I had not seen a single other source discuss it like that! So you think the battery could have actually been a part of the storage unit that helped preserve the papyrus? That is a really interesting interpretation and seems very logical. I wonder why we don't see technology like this for storage in other places. Perhaps the climate here called for it or it was stored in a damp environment.
@@miniminuteman773 Cathodic protection is pretty common where you have underground systems that pose a big problem if they fail and that are intended to last more than 20 years (e.g. oil pipelines, hazardous chemical supplies, marine docks). The principle's been around since the 1820s but the technology has only been in common use since the 1920s. Since it requires regular maintenance and costs to design and install, it's not used for most low-risk situations.
As for why we don't see it archaeologically... it's certainly possible the galvanic reaction was observed by one person in particular but since the technology wasn't there to understand it, it never came into common use. Plus, since the 'battery' has to be 'recharged' frequently it might simply have taken too much effort to be worth it. Again, ALL speculation here.
But it is the standard design for tanked water heaters... You probably have one in yours and weren't even aware! 😉
@@CaelanAegana but wouldn't that still require the papyrus to be submerged in an electrolyte solution? If it's sealed in a separate jar, there's no pathway for the electron flow to include the papyrus. So far as I know, the longest surviving examples of papyrus have come from arid environments
@@jawsbert it's honestly a best guess given what little is known about these things. If (BIG IF) that was what they were trying to do, they almost certainly didn't fully grasp why it worked. But no, there wouldn't need to be solution in the papyrus jar, because the Cathodic protection would have been applicable to the jar's exterior (specifically the iron bit), to keep it from deteriorating and letting water inside. No contact with water = preserved papyrus.
@@CaelanAegana ah, okay. I assumed when you said it could accelerate the deterioration of organic materials that we were talking about protecting the papyrus directly, rather than protecting the container. Thanks for the clarification
Man, that museum story gets me. We still periodically find stuff the Nazis hid that we didn't even know went missing. We'll be finding artifacts from that museum for decades
You wanna feel sad, it was the Americans that did the looting.
Yeah, like, during WW2 we lost the most complete spinosaurus skeleton we have yet found.
Anything remaining is likely in a collection of sorts as the Nazi's were selling a lot of it off for profit. A good large portion of it definitely made its way to Russia and the US though.
@@josephpowell2850 im am pretty sure that the museum that had that spinosaurus was completely obliterated during a british firebombing air raid. we will never get those particular fossils back. 😥
There's loads of stuff in museums around the world that is in desperate need of documentation and additional preservation efforts, but for various reasons these archives continue to be neglected. And then there's all the shit that various people, most notoriously the nazis, hid away. Who knows when that stuff will all be found.
I looked up the motel of the mysteries on Amazon and your book showed up in the recommendations.
Thank you for the redlining mention. Perfect!
A detail you didn't mention: The clips with people demonstrating these “working replicas” invariably use a single LED. That's a completely different technology from an incandescent light bulb. Even a light bulb dimensioned for flashlights draws several orders of magnitude more power than an LED to even begin to glow. So these “working replicas” are, in fact, not working.
what do you mean, what about those ancient silicon semiconductor forges we dug up!? :D
Yeah, I just keep thinking how dull an incandescent lightbulb is, and we have to use a vacuum to keep those running for more than a few seconds.
You obviously haven't heard of the Baghdad Light Emitting Diode...
you're just going to pretend that the _Tigris Transformer_ doesn't exist?!
@@jaewok5G and Babylon Railgun ;)
When you started saying "Why don't we just study the artifact", my original thought was that it was lost during world war 2. It really caught me off guard when you said how recent the loss really was.
And remember! The invasion of Iraq was based on a lie! Even better!
Fuckin George W Bush, man...
@@z-beeblebrox and tony blair, jon howard, etc. bush wasn't the only western leader to go all in back then...
@@ThePoohat he was the only one to go because of end of the world Evangelical lunacy.
@@carlost856 what? He did it for imperialism
I LOVED Motel of the Mysteries as a kid!!! Delighted to hear it mentioned!
Science Educator here..
I LOVE telling students, “That’s a great question! I have no idea. 🤔”
It’s so important to normalize not knowing. It’s the fuel of science. And for this Google Generation, I feel like it will be even MORE uncomfortable to not know things.
I don’t know WAY more than I do know. And the more I know, the more I know I don’t know.
The description of the "batteries" got me thinking, as painter it's common to store brushes only used for thinner based paint in paint thinner as cleaning them is more effort than it's worth. Just imagine some guy in 2000 years digging up a shed and finding a sealed jar with a brush and paint thinner inside and everyone starts speculating what kind of highly advanced apperatus they found.
huh... good point. everyone fixed on asphault since it's an insulator but it's probably just an ordinary damned lid. And asphault would be good (er) at keeping stuff in than most ancient alternatives.
Let's not forget the 'Buddhas of Bamiyan' being blown up. That was a cultural crime that infuriates me to this day.
Yes, the tragic case of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, whose destruction was ordered by the Taliban in 2001, shows intriguing similarities with the destruction of Artemis Temple: the eradication of a monument, sacred as well as emblematic and belonging to the cultural heritage.
I had a similar thought as well.
“What if these jars that have nothing in common are filled with different things…were just jars used for storage ?”
I paint as well as do miniatures and 3d printing and have about 20 different containers full of things ranging from chemicals, brushes, tools and such. I don’t finding hard to believe someone else in ancient history may have needed storage solutions for their hobby or profession.
Yeah, despite it being able to generate an electric current, nobody is willing to theorize its purpose assuming that property is coincidental. Perhaps it was just acid.
Considering we've only found a few of these in the same remote region, it's possible that this was a singular discovery by one person and he never revealed it to anyone. Maybe he actually did accidently figure out how to plate something, or just thought the shock was cool, but either it didn't fully work or he died shortly after and they just sat there doing nothing for the rest of time.
I think "eccentric guy throwing stuff together to see what will happen" is something we don't consider enough with these types of things.
I mean... that's pretty much how a lot of stuff was discovered. Granted the people had some scientific knowledge about how stuff works but by and large it was typically some dude just trying a lot of stuff out.
I imagine that guy was the StyroPyro of his time
It would explain why each are different, experimentation.
It's like the "words of unknown origin" that seem to my ear to be like the kind of words I'd make up one day if I wanted a cutesy- or silly-sounding or "ad hoc" word. It's almost like we somehow think only contemporary people could be unserious. What the hell?
This could be very true
Best professor ever. Thank you for your refreshing honesty and scientific mindset.
I like how if future archaeologists dug through the landfill of a small town there would be zillions of alkaline batteries and light bulbs, because when a society uses technology like that it actually /uses/ it.
The fact that there’s just one “battery” and one carving of a light bulb shows it wasn’t actually electricity or electric lights.
It all started with one unhinged man, now it's a complete team with a researchist, an editor and a mixologist? Damn, I can't wait to see what this channel will become in a couple of years xD
One massive university party
I anticipate a completely chaotic hand puppet.
And a blacksmith 🙊
We already have "Drunk History." Is the world ready for "Drunk Archaeology?"
“I don’t know” is the most honest and powerful statement a researcher can make.
It's certainly better than "people say", or "looks like". I also feel like some of these shows want us to believe that the word "possible" means "probable".
"I don't know" is an answer which isn't allowed in most of academia. It's also dismissed by things as simple as pride.
@@JtRiddell "We don't know" actually comes up *constantly* in academia. Not in undergrad, in actual Research work.
@@Michael-bn1oi ok, caveats exist. Thank you for covering my blindness, but only in actual research work. If you're the student and trying to pass your midterm or write your thesis, you are very much expected to know.
But, therein draws the line of what's necessary or superfluous, right?
I imagine someone saying this, then turning to look out of the window of the old Land Rover that they're riding in and observing the vast desert landscape outside. "But there's a lot of un-dug desert out there" followed by heavy breathing as he clutches a spade and trowel.
I'm a new subscriber, loving catching up on your work. What a joy you are to watch!
I can't believe I allowed you to 'force' me to listen to that damned robot voice though!
Well done! The Enrichment Center reminds you that although circumstances may appear bleak, you are not alone. All Aperture Science personality constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic, low power environments of as few as 1.1 volts.
On Mythbusters, they tried the purported design and found that actual lemons work better.
If you have lemons. But those are native to india.
@@4203105 I think they had spread to the Middle East by that point in time.
Light bulbs need wayyyyyy more voltage and current than lemon can produce
There is a video here on youtube of someone playing Doom on a potato.
Okay, a couple hundred potatoes powering a graphing calculator that runs Doom, but still.
So besides the obligatory "Doom runs on a potato" joke, it proves that even potatoes can give enough electricity if you chain up enough of them. Lemons or vinegar would be much more potent. The problem is rather that stuff gets off too fast.
@@zaxi0so the fact that a lemon works better than it further proves that it wasn't use for light bulbs
At some level, I have to wonder if either: A. these were a one off experiment by someone living in antiquity that just happened to notice that putting copper and iron in acid got him mildly zapped, and then made a couple more to try to figure out why, and when he died, got buried with them because no one else ended up caring about it, or B. Someone in the 1930s found tiny clay jars and had an idea. It wouldn't be the first time someone from the dark ages of archaeology decided that fame and fortune was more important than history.
That B part could be true but I slightly have some doubt on it ... I read that the claim by Wilhelm König that the jars dated on Parthian era could be a misnomer, and has been said that the style matches that of the Sassanids era, the Era succeeded them.
I hope they did a C-14 dating on it before the Iraqi war happened cause I can't find that information as a Layman... Because it's really hard to fake a Radicarbon dating... I guess not impossible, but really not worth the hassle
My thoughts on the entire theory. It proves they COULD HAVE, made batteries. But NOT if they did. Fact is we know they chose not to. But everything needed to make a battery was right there. Adam Savage agrees with this. They had the ingredients but for whatever reason they chose not to. Bonus fact: it would be about as good as a cheepo modern AA.
Yah. If this is really a battery it was likely a situation similar to heros engine. The ancient Greco-Egyptian steam engine that was pretty much just a toy without practical use.
@@amberfarmer2869 Thank you for bringing this point up, it's what I tend to think.
Fancy alcohol mixer...
Thank you for teaching us! I had no idea about the museum section!
Iron and copper also produce galvanic corrosion when submerged in a brine solution. I would imagine any ancient metalworker that used iron and copper would've seen this at some point. It could be that the maker was purposely trying to produce galvanic corrosion. To study it, to test methods to prevent it, or to use the corroded metals to try to produce something. I think they had no idea about electricity but were just trying to figure out something about corrosion.
I think I strong possibility, speaking as a chemist, is that someone was trying something just to see what happens. Maybe this guy generated a charge with a weird mix of vinegar and metal and thought, "Hell, what can I do with this?" So he made a couple more, tried some things, failed, and then scrapped the project.
*Puts it on the shelf in their cave/workshop. "Hmm...I'll get back to this"
*Never gets back to it
I like this theory. Maybe he managed to create a spark on accident or heat up a piece of metal and started to experiment with it.
@@octoscorpion2506
*flashback to the end of Raiders*
Considering disease, famine, war, and many other things that can kill someone, the dude could just have died shortly after experimentation. He left them in a spot, intending to return, and never could come back.
Life happens.
I think it's extremely believable that someone intentionally made this as a curiosity, but really doubt they could find any practical applications beyond tricking people into grabbing the rod
That bit at the end about the National Museum of Iraq genuinely turns my stomach. I don't know how I was never aware of it before, but seeing those smashed cases and things is unbelieveably upsetting to me. Thousands of irreplaceable artifacts, the stories and traces of millions upon millions of human beings who once lived and died, stolen for profit or perhaps destroyed. Horrible.
Honestly, if you think that is upsetting, then your not gonna like what we did to the middle east in general....
Baghdad was a major thriving city, and had nothing to do with the terrorists that came to america in 2001. but, the US didn't care, we bombed that city, and its never been the same.
We DESTROYED an entire city, filled with millions of people, people that had wives, husbands, daughters, sons, grandparents, markets, schools, churches, etc. outright KILLING entire families, wiping out generations of people. we committed genocide after genocide....just because we had an inkling that they had something to do with the terrorists.
Ancient knowledge and education is nice, but honestly i think modern day people, people who have lives RIGHT NOW, are a bit more important.
And don't get me wrong, this looting of artifacts, which as you said, were "the stories and traces of millions upon millions of human beings who once lived and died" is a MAJOR TRAGEDY by itself. We might not ever find the stories of many of those people ever again. Those people are now lost to the ever present thing of time, just because of someones stupid desire for war and bloodshed.
Michael Moors documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 )ii think it was that one anyway) includes scenes from the bombing of Baghdad, and how the civilians who lived there reacted, and how they suffered because of that bombing.
(i upvoted your comment too, FYI, it deserves to be seen, read, and understood)
@@alericjohansen6775 I don't disagree with your comment at all, what the U.S./Coalition forces did was an atrocity that continues to ruin peoples lives to this day. But I do hate that it's impossible to make a comment like the one I left without someone jumping on and giving the "but what about..." comment. Just because I didn't explicitly mention something doesn't mean I am not aware of it and angry about it.
Sorry, I still don't disagree with you at all here, I just really don't like how people online seem to expect that every comment must address every aspect of a situation. It makes discussion impossible because every comment would need to be a 25 page essay just to meet everyones standard.
(I think this comment comes off more hostile than I intended. I'm not mad at you or anything here, your comment is accurate and perfectly reasonable. This is just the bit my brain got stuck on this morning)
@@WarningPuzzle
True, your comment can come off as hostile (i didn't read the 1st part as that hostile, more just making some good arguments, but the 2nd part did make it clear you werent trying to be), but technically mine can too. But, i think its hard to hit on such a subject without invoking someones anger/rage, so its to be expected.
You are right though, trying to meet the standards of everyone WOULD mean a 25 page essay (or longer, as the history of things can get quite complicated).
And your also right, just because you didn't explicitly say some other aspect, doesn't mean you aren't aware of it and angry about it.
Im glad that you are aware of that stuff. Too many people that I talk to/argue with online don't even seem to care.
Too often i see people not even care that people are suffering. And WAY too often i see people take GLEE in the suffering of others.
Different experiences between us I guess.
It still somehow shocks me that people can't mourn the permanent loss of ancient history, through the destruction of incomprehensibly priceless and unique artifacts that through unbelievable odds survived millennia, without knuckle-dragging, mouth breathing morons screaming about sADdaM hOOSaiN blah blah weapons of maSs DesTrUCtiOn, OORAH, every five fucking minutes.
Think of all the people exploited just to obtain these artifacts.
Oh my God, thank you so much! Thank you, thank you thank you!!❣️❣️ I’m not an anthropologist, but before I finished my two masters degrees in music, I was two semesters away from finishing a bachelors degree in anthropology. Physical anthropology. And it is so disheartening and frustrating to see all these conspiracies regarding these artifacts. It’s a breath of fresh air to see them presented in a scientific, anthropological fashion, not pseudoscience, not pseudo anthropology.❤
I’m distracted zooming in on his laptop’s stickers. I feel like I should know what Ohop is
love this. new to your channel
getting demodderated for spreading knowledge
😭😭
I've always thought "ceremonial purposes" was the archaeological equivalent of throwing your hands in the air and giving up.
True, but if an archaeologist says something was for “fertility rituals” you know it’s a s*x toy
No that is claiming aliens and comparing it to extremely modern tech.
@@brianmeans5965 The conspiracy theorists' version of "I don't know" is "aliens did it".
The archeologists' version of "I don't know" is "ceremonial purposes".
The dry-humor no-bullshit tone of this channel is extremely refreshing. As someone who grew up watching the History/Discover channels before they declined, I sorely miss genuinely educational and entertaining history programs. This channel is definitely scratching that itch.
Motel of the Mysteries! I always wanted to read that book but I didn't know the title. I remember that around 1980 my english teacher told us she read it and found it very funny, especially the toilet-seat-as-ceremonial-outfit thing, but at that time I still wasn't capable of reading a real-life book in english - only the simplified stuff for students, - and later I forgot completely about it.
Thank you very much! Nice video, by the way.
I think I just found a new favorite channel.
I remember talking to a friend studying archeology who told me "whenever there's a place with lots of seats and a pedastel and no explanation, archeologists just decide it's a sort of a 'church'/'ritual site' even if there's no further proof of that" and i found it so bizzare but with this video i see that's a common practice of "we don't know what it is so it must be X"
It's Occam's Razor. You start by assuming it's the most likely thing, and when you disprove that, you move onto the next most likely thing given the current evidence. It's more productive than disproving a long list of unlikely but possible things only to end up determining it's a temple 90% of the time.
@@battlesheep2552 there is a difference between considering the possibility of something and acknowledging it may be incorect rather than outright claiming it as fact though. it is also kinda questionable if you can really say something is "most likely X" just because you personally think it looks like X.
@@elio7610 I think non scientific outlets are to blame in this case. To acknowladge a theory's limitations is expected in academic circles, but media outlets often ignore caviats when trying to tell a cohesive narrative. Since this is how most of the public learns about science it results on assumptions becoming facts in the mainstream.
imagine if people in the past hang out for any other reason that mysterious rituals. would be wild.
@@signodeinterrogacion8361 caveat*
Hearing about all the missing and broken artifacts genuinely tore at my heart- at least some were returned but centuries of history just being lost like that just hurts, especially after hearing how much the staff desperately tried to protect them in the first place
I teared up. Like heck, thanks for the feels Milo
Personally I'm a lot more bothered about the half a million innocent civilians the US military killed during that war by using "scorched earth" tactics (which, if you don't know, means destroying all food and water sources within an area to starve their enemies...also every other person in the area who doesn't evacuate).
@@WildBluntHickok The US didn't do that. The deaths did happened, but that wasn't how.
@@WildBluntHickok hey dude did you know two things can upset a person. In fact, many things can. People don't have one single thing that upsets them.
That's not what we're talking about right now. This is a video about archaeology lmao
I literally cried. Just... why.
It would be hilarious if these pots are basically just the egyptian equivalent of those little claw bowls you would make in primary school for some reason and we are vastly over thinking them.
OMFG....I love your sarcasm and your videos....pleaseeeeee keep posting.
"I stole this pillar from a gravestone"
Truly an archaeologist.
the pyramid was too heavy ;)
Tomb raider
_RuleBritannia.mp3_
"I really am starting to fill the role of the weird substitute teacher" those are the best teachers. Would always learn more from them than the actual teacher.
We like the weird substitutes. They’re funnier than the real teachers.
I had a weird substitute teacher straight up turn into our real teacher after the original lost his credentials. Dude was strange as hell so it turned into a very eventful year.
Had a bummer world history teacher for a couple months then BOOM, crazy ass Kendrick Lamar looking dude for the rest of the year. Loved that guy.
I was just trying to make him cry or quit whichever came first
Shit I thought for a second I had already left a comment 4 months ago when I saw yours and didn't recall having seen the video.
High five mate
The thing with this and the "light bulb" is also this: If it really would be so common for the egyptians to use "batterys" and "light bulbs" you would find these things en mass, at least in burial chambers and you would have far far more depictions and so on.
I had to rewatch the entire point about "in situe" because I was distracted by the chalkboard drying
As much as "ceremonial use" is a running gag in archaeological circles, I think it makes a lot of sense for the Baghdad Battery. If you have no conception of electricity and you grab a sacred object and it makes you go all tingly, that's going to feel like a religious experience to you. At least, religious chicanery has always been my guess about what they were for.
that was actually the theory the mythbusters tested. they electrified some statues and concluded that yes, with enough jar batteries, you could make a gold idol that gave you some tingles when you laid hands on it. not a completely implausible answer.
@@Saibellus Oh, cool! I don't recall that ep of the Mythbusters, but I'll have to see if I can go hunt it down.
Was that the episode where they made "An Ark" or something, and made Adam touch both of the statues and he got smacked by a shock from hell, destroying his trust in them and really straining their relationship? They were all giddy before and while it happened, and he was dumbfounded they believed it to be funny and thought it alright to lie to him that it isn't charged or anything funny like that.@@Saibellus
@@japanesecar1501 Supposedly that was heavily encouraged by a director who they all ended up disliking and who got fired from the show eventually. Im pretty sure Adam ended up forgiving the rest of the crew about it. Also the lie was that they told him it was attached to the baghdad batteries, when they had actually attached it to an electrical fence generator, which Adam was very right to get angry at because the current that passed across his heart genuinely got close to killing him.
it can definitely cause you to have a heart episode, the amps should have been small , but the shock is real, real. I believe fences for livestock differ, but commonly are 15ish kV, and fences for thick skinned mammals even 25-50 kV? I am now intrigued as to what the wattage is. I think "shock amps" to kill even an elephant could be anywhere from 3-10 times higher than a mans(it´s said 50mA through the heart is enough to disrupt with consequences, and will kill you with prolonged exposure, but it used to be a common experiment at a Czech university(atleast there, possibly all around the world), where you signed a waiver, and the prof let you feel the current with increasing intensity, topping out at 150 some mA of passthrough current for a bit, but that is my teen memory speaking.@@nabagaca
I watched electroboom debunk this two years ago. Excited to get a more archeological angle to it rather than an EE angle.
small world
The classic mythbusters episode from 20 years ago was also great..they were hesitant to even cover it because they thought so little of it scientifically and labeled it hibbity jibbity hahaha, and were like sure it might have religious purpose to give people a faint buzz..but definitely not a battery
@@KaladinVegapunk omg was that the episode where the producers made them electrocute Adam and he was extremely pissed off about it?
And Kari's terrified "did you feel god" as her eyes said she knew they went too far.
@@danielled8665 Ahh horrific nostalgiac memories. Fun fact: the original producer was fired after that little stunt. I felt so bad for Adam (and Kari and Grant and Tory.)
@@danielled8665 I'm pretty sue that was the Ark of the Covenant replica.
I was already a fan, but the subtle Brawndo product placement got me to subscribe. Keep it up.
I also like how in one of the clips of a 'working' recreation of the battery, he has around 11 wired together, and they kinda /just/ illuminate a single **red LED**. A relatively new invention that is far more energy efficient than the incandescent bulbs they claim the Ancient Egyptians had.
The toilet thing reminds me that a museum did that kind of thing (in France) : they took broken parts from a 1900's water pump, and other similar devices, and let people try to guess what they were (without indicating the age).
There is also a TV show people people come to have antiques being expertized, and they had a segment where people would bring "unknown stuff" usually found in a barn, so that the "experts" would identify them. Sometime they could guess what it was, or had seen similar stuff, but other time, even knowing who owned it (a carpenter in the 1930's) they couldn't make any kind of guess on what it could be.
Of course it doesn't mean no one knows, but, if we cannot properly recognize things that were made just one century ago, it kind of makes you wonder how we could ever hope to identify the purpose of one or a few items made millenias ago, that came without context and are not mentioned in any antique source.
This inspired me to see if my dad has any old mud knives they're things that help with mudding sheetrock I don't know how to describe it Google it.
But I'm going to take the fancy plastic handles off of a broken one soak it in something so that it rust and then show it to a person interested in archeology have them guess what it is before telling them it's a mud knife
oh my god! I had the book of diagrams for this exact thing! it was about the motel they "dug up," and guessed the uses of the archeological objects they found, right? or am I completely off?
@@epice834 It's the book shown in the video...
P_,'- ft 5
Do you know if there’s a video or an article about the French museum event?
First thing I thought of when the acid at the bottom of the “battery” was my father making a mechanism for setting up a triple A battery to “safely” add voltage to his alcohol. Gave a quite literal buzz to the drink. Humans do weird things for weird feelings, always have always will. Maybe this is an example of that?
Your dad did what??
Could you describe this mechanism to me? For research purposes of course
☝️ The world needs to know
Tell us more!!!
EX FUCKING PLAIN
I'm catching up with your older videos, so this is a really late post. But I just loved "Motel of the Mysteries"! 😂 It was one if my favorites growing up too. So thanks for reminding me of that.
I always felt the Bagdad Battery was an experiment. We never saw any examples of electroplating because the process wasn't productive enough and the backyard tinkerer who invented it just gave up on it.
EEEY! fellow Rhode Islander! Love to see it, cool channel broski.
Imagine being 6 episodes into the best idea for a series ever and it being so radically different, better, and more chaotic than the first. I love this series and I love that shirt and want to steal it.
The potato can also be used as a battery. The druids must have used potatoes to power Stonehenge!
Potato juice can be used as the electrolyte in a battery, along with electrodes made of two different metals. This artefact has the electrodes with two different metals, so that’s what makes it interesting.
Why, the magic of the druids!
Potatoes are a new world crop, they didn't exist in Europe until the 1500's
@@shmooveyea Not only that, many Europeans were superstitious about potatoes and eating them didn't catch on for 100s of years in most cases.
Potatoes where not part of the Old World at that time. And this is why there are not Pyramids in Europe... amoung other reasons or lack or reasoning......🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I would say the hypothesis of it being an offering should merit investigation. If something like wine was placed in the containers as a grave offering, eventually, the wine would become vinegar. If the PH levels further increased, we would get acid. Offerings of food or drink were common among ancient near eastern civilizations.
One of my thoughts about the jars is that the most simple solution is likely the most accurate. Some of the jars contained residue of something acidic and copper. Copper has anti-microbial properties, which is why it's so commonly used in plumbing today. If I wanted to store some wine without it going bad, copper wouldn't be a bad option, but maybe I don't have enough to make an entire vessel of copper. Having a copper core inserted into the vessel before it's sealed could keep that wine for a long time, killing off any contaminants during storage. Ancient people may not have understood what an anti-microbial material was, or understood what the copper was doing, but trial and error often led ancient people to the right solutions even if they didn't know why. Like how they were making wine and beer long before ever having isolated yeast. It's just that some of the steps they used ritualistically to make alcohol involved actions that just happen to introduce yeast to the mixture, like stomping grapes with the feet. This helped introduce wild yeast to the grape juice.
I feel like Milo is speedrunning "old history teacher who doesn't give a shit anymore"
Alternatively as I saw someone mention in a different reply thread, “Perpetually exhausted young college professor that the main character falls for in an AO3 story”
tbh all history teachers seem like that regardless of age lol
Boy came out the womb with tenure.
That one ancient nobleman who was very eccentric and died alone is now laughing as the entire archeology community struggle to figure out what his completely random poetry work was because he incidentally made a battery
Yeah I'm just imagining a guy just gluing a bunch of shit together and someone comes over and he's like "what's that" and he's like "idfk I got all these old pots I'm fucking around with before I dump them off at the river"
No TV back in those days. Needed to do something to pass the time.@@nonpondo_
Motel of the mysteries? Man you're bringing some old memories back
Thank you for mentioning Motel of the Mysteries. I loved that book.
Fun sidebar: Portuguese sailors also introduced casava root to Taiwan around the same time as Africa, which became a snack in the form of tapioca pearls. This eventually led to, you guessed it, tapioca boba tea!
boba is so good though. If anyone out there hasn't tried taro boba, you're missing out!
@@kahlzun Taro boba is my favorite! :>
And Portuguese Sailors got it from South America, Brazil probably
@@NikyCROW here in Brazil tapioca is a little powder that can be filled with food, becomes 'taco-like' when heated
Calling unusual jars from the middle east the "The Baghdad batteries" is like going to England and calling an abandoned telephone booth "The London Time Machines"
At least the London Police Call Boxes have some "documentaries" explaining how they were used and why they were used. Produced by the British Government no less :) (depends on how much you think the BBC really is a part of the government or not)
Depending on how Middle you East, it could be like saying "oh wow a Brussels Box!"
*vworp* *vworp* *vworp*
Not really… this jar in its configuration has no other possible purpose other than to create a mild electric charge. Plugging up the top with tar makes it useless as a jar and why else would you seal copper iron and vinegar in a container?
The fact is we have documents from Ancient Rome describing the use of bio-electric fish in wading pools to deliver mild electric stimuli to bathers (eels I think 🤔 not sure the exact types)
There’s a concept called “affordance” that is the design and construction of an object dictates its use. For example if we found an ancient tomb with bits of metal with sharpened edges and shaped to a point with a handle affixed … we can reasonably say that these ancient people used these objects to cut things or stab people - you don’t need to have direct evidence to reasonably infer that’s what those bits of metal were used for.
Same thing here, unless you can explain to me why a person would seal a copper tube with a bit of iron and vinegar inside a jar and close the whole thing off with tar so it’s no longer functional as a jar?
Watching this AFTER 6.5 just makes me appreciate this video even more