Sumerian cylinder seal relief of beer drinking, Ur, ca. 2500 BCE (image public domain)
Posted on 04/19/2019 11:52:12 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
How long have humans brewed beer? Patrick McGovern, the world's foremost historian of ancient brews, hints in Ancient Brews (2017) that this activity has been around possibly at least for 11,000 years based on vessels from Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia (Turkey). How sophisticated was brewing in antiquity? Since the ancient artifact ca. 100 CE known as the "Baghdad Battery" was discovered in the 1930's, the purpose for which it was used has been a mystery. Wilhelm Koenig, a German curator of the Baghdad Museum, discovered it near Ctesiphon - the Sassanid capital and previously in the Parthian Empire around 1936 but the context is uncertain according to Dr. St. John Simpson of the British Museum. While some have proposed its use as a galvanic battery or device for electroplating, debate has been fierce...
One hypothesis to consider is that the Artifact may have been used to purify beer (or possibly another acidic beverage). A search of the internet reveals (a) that one byproduct of fermentation is hydrogen sulfide (H2S) which causes an off-taste in most kinds of beer; and (b) copper is commonly used today to remove H2S from beer...
This system would probably need a time frame of days (rather than minutes or hours) to work... Sealing the system with bitumen would help contain the H2 gas. It would also keep out oxygen, which otherwise would reduce efficiency...
Another explanation for the Artifact's small size is so it can be easily shaken. Shaking of the system would be beneficial because hydrogen gas on the iron rod would reduce the surface area for the reaction and secondly, shaking the system would allow for better homogenization and exposure of the copper to the dissolved gas...
(Excerpt) Read more at electrummagazine.com ...
In before the nitwit Nibiru bull****.
Looks like hookah smoking
Ping. Even then, they were looking at scientific methods to produce a fine beer.
Ctesiphon - the Sassanid capital and previously in the Parthian Empire around 1936...
Amazing, I didn’t know the Parthian Empire lasted until
1936.
Learn something new every day.
I have read that the battery was used by magicians. For what, I don’t know.
Obviously it was for facial hair removal.
Yea, I know . . . Patrick Macnee is not Patrick McGovern. So?
Well any excuse for me to post this.
Someone dug up the magician's instructions, but *poof* they vanished! :^)
Them’s the Peil’s brothers! Bert & Harry, IIRC.
Ah, thanks for the ping. We owe beer so much. Well, I do, anyway.
Blatz wasn’t good enough I guess.
... well, a German scientist DID discover the darned thing... so I’m going with beer.
NI-BEER-U!
it was at one time
I enjoyed this article, thanks for posting it.
Obviously a battery.
Too bad about that long wait for the transistor, though.
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