We are accustomed to the conquests of civilization. There seems to be nothing surprising when you flip a switch and a light comes on; you press the button and you expose your face to the cool breeze generated by the fan blades; you plug the plug into the outlet, and the iron heats up to the desired temperature in a matter of seconds. It is difficult to imagine that in ancient times people did not know electricity. Or maybe they still knew him?..
Sun stone
Millions of years ago, a giant glacier cap hung over Europe, and the climate was completely different. The vegetation was somewhat reminiscent of the modern taiga with a variety of conifers. Under the scorching sun, the relict spruces and pines, broken by storms, thickly oozed. Over time, the resinous secretions acquired a stone hardness. This is how amazing amber was born. Thousands of years ago, jewelry and amulets were already made from it. History has not preserved the name of an unknown shepherd who accidentally rubbed petrified resin on a sheep's skin. There was a slight crackling, and the hairs stood on end …
Thousands of years have passed, and already the ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus purposefully set up various experiments with the "electron", which in Greek means "amber". We don't know too much about these simple experiments. It is more or less known that the philosopher carved various figures out of amber - sticks, plates, balls and cubes, which he then rubbed with all sorts of fabrics, skins and wool.
So he investigated the "relationship" of objects and materials and the "divine power of the electron." For a long time it was believed that this was the only (apart from lightning) human acquaintance with electricity, but history loves to surprise.
Baghdad Battery
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One day in 1936, during the construction of the southeastern section of the Baghdad railway, workers stumbled upon an ancient Parthian tomb. In it were found clay yellow-brown vessels of two thousand years ago. Inside were sheets of copper rolled into a cylinder, corroded iron rods and pieces of bitumen - natural asphalt. The bitumen appears to have covered the top and bottom of a copper cylinder, inside which an iron rod was placed.
The bituminous sealant and traces of corrosion suggest that the vessels contained some caustic liquid, such as wine vinegar. So maybe we have a real battery in front of us? This is what the director of the National Museum of Iraq, Wilhelm König, believed. This eminent archaeologist came to the sensational conclusion that the contents of the vessels closely resemble galvanic cells.
However, most archaeologists are sure that here they just encountered ordinary cases for storing papyrus scrolls, because similar artifacts were found near the city of Seleucia on the Tigris and the capital of the Parthian kingdom of Ctesiphon. There, in the "Seleucia vases" they found a scroll of papyrus and twisted sheets of bronze, more like a pencil case for rolled sheets of papyrus.
The "Seleukian vases" could contain sacred scrolls made of parchment or papyrus, on which some ritual texts were written. During their decomposition, organic acids could be released, corroding copper and iron, which explains the traces of corrosion on the internal metal parts. At the same time, the bituminous sealant "allowed storing the contents of the jug for a long time.
Ancient Egyptian "lamps"
The sensationalism of the possible use of "Seleucia vases", despite the objections of academic scientists, caused a wave of interest in "electrical" artifacts. Enthusiasts for exploring the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian "temple science" Peter Crassa and Reinhard Habek even wrote the book "The Light of the Pharaohs", where they considered the issue of using electricity in ancient times.
They suggested that the "temple scientists" who were part of the priestly caste were able to make some "jed-pillars", one of the components of the energy supply system. The authors also claim that during the excavation of the pyramids, models of all kinds of "searchlights" with copper wires were discovered.
The conclusions of the researchers of the "Egyptian light" are based on the unusual temple frescoes of the ancient Egyptian. First of all, the mysterious bas-reliefs of the underground temple of Dendera stand out here. In one of the stone chambers of unknown purpose, human figures are depicted next to certain objects in the shape of a bulb.
These bulbs, or bubbles, very much resemble giant electric lamps with bizarre wriggling snakes inside. The heads of the snakes are crowned with lotus flowers, somewhat reminiscent of lamp holders. Something like a cable is connected to a box, near which there is a symbol of power - "jed-pillar", also fastened with snakes.
True, a significant dose of imagination is needed to imagine the Pharaoh's servants holding in their hands some kind of mysterious apparatus resembling lamps or even searchlights connected by wires to a number of storage vessels.
There are also critical arguments, because the image is accompanied only by the hieroglyphs of some religious hymn dedicated to the sun god - Ra. This allowed Egyptologists to discard all informal hypotheses and confidently explain the pictograms with the image of the temple mystery with the heavenly boat of the sun god Ra. According to the beliefs of the Egyptians, the sun dies every day in the evening and rises at dawn. Here he is symbolized by a snake, which, as was believed in the land of the pharaohs, is reborn every time it sheds its skin.
By the way, the German physicist Frank Derenburg calculated the parameters of the battery according to the "Baghdad version", and it turned out that such a structure for lighting Egyptian undergrounds should weigh tens, or even hundreds of tons. Which is clearly contrary to common sense.
On the way to the solution - "living accumulators"
The mystery of "Baghdad batteries" and "Egyptian electricity" can be solved in an unexpected way. The medical historians of the ancient world know paradoxical methods of treatment with the help of … "animal electricity". In principle, there is nothing unusual here, because some representatives of the Nile electric catfish are really capable of striking with 400-volt impulses at ampere current, which is very important for modern electromedicine.
There are descriptions by European ethnographers of the 18th century that the same Abyssinians used "electroshock therapy" in an unusual way and very successfully. During severe bouts of swamp fever, they tightly tied the patient to a wooden platform, poured brine (water of salt lakes) over him and touched his navel with a live electric catfish wrapped in dry papyrus. Electric shocks followed until the febrile seizure ceased.
By the end of the 18th century, the theme of "living electricity" had become popular among British doctors and biologists. Anatomist John Walsh proved the electrical nature of the stingray impact, showing that electrical impulses are not transmitted by "air fluids", but by direct contact and the "conductive affinity of substances." Then the Scottish surgeon John Hunter examined the structure of the electrical organ of this unusual fish. Walsh and Hunter's studies were published in 1773 and a few years later came to the Italian physician and physiologist Luigi Galvani.
Galvani began experimenting with the effects of static electricity. One day, his assistant accidentally touched a frog's paw with a scalpel that had accumulated an electrical discharge. The foot jerked convulsively, and a new area of research opened up for Galvani.
Dealing with "animal electricity", Galvani concluded that muscles are a kind of accumulators, which are controlled by the central nervous system through electrical signals. Using the famous medical principle of "like - like", he suggested that many muscle diseases, spasms and "cramps" could be treated with electrical discharges.
So, maybe the low-current Egyptian and Sumerian "electrical appliances" had a medical purpose? This seems to be possible in electroacupuncture procedures, when small current pulses are applied to biologically active points (BAP). By the way, electric impact on BAP can also lead to an analgesic effect.
So, whether "electrical" artifacts existed or not, historical science still does not know, because after the death of the Alexandria Library, thousands of papyrus scrolls, keeping the secrets of "temple science", disappeared.
Perhaps, we are still waiting for very unusual archaeological finds of "cryptoelectric" artifacts that will open new pages in the history of science and technology.
Oleg FAYG