There was a set of three artifacts that were found together in the Iraqi province of Khujut Rabu, during the Parthian Empire. They were a ceramic pot, a singular type of metal and a rod of another type of metal. No one really knew what they were until an assistant at the National Museum of Iraq suggested that it might be a battery cell, to electroplate gold and sliver objects. As the theory goes, if you put the one metal rod, inside the metal tube, then inside the ceramic pot filled with an electrolyte solution, you get a charge. That’s the theory, at least.

No one really knows what is actually. Some say it’s just a storage device for papyri, but the real answer is lost in the sands of the desert.