between myth and history 189
although “most visitors only hear unintelligible sounds.” In AD 80– 82, a
Roman centurion named Lucius Tanicius inscribed the dates and times
when he heard the song on thirteen visits. Many other ancient tourists
left graffiti on the singing colossus— the last datable inscription is from
AD 205. Some commentators maintained that after Emperor Septimius
Severus restored the statue in AD 200, Memnon’s song was never heard
again, but the Christian Fathers Theodoret, Jerome, and others insisted
that all the old Egyptian idols ceased to speak when Jesus was born. 19
As we’ve seen, there were many ways to cause statues to appear to move,
speak, or give the illusion of being alive. 20 Paul Craddock (an expert on
ancient Near Eastern metallurgy) speculated that such “temple tricks”
might have included making an idol that produced a tingling sensation
when touched. Craddock’s theory attempted to account for the enigmatic
objects known as “Baghdad Batteries” discovered in 1936– 38 in Iraq. The
artifacts are thought to be either Parthian (ca. 250 BC to AD 240) or
Sassanian (AD 224– 640). The objects are controversial: some historians
take them as evidence of early Persian experimentation with electricity.
Unfortunately, the artifacts vanished in the looting of Baghdad’s Iraq
Museum in 2003, but written descriptions, diagrams, and photographs
provide the details.
The small terra- cotta jars, each about five inches long, contain cylin-
ders made of iron rods encased in rolled sheets of copper, sealed at the top
with asphalt (bitumen) and at the bottom with a copper disc and asphalt:
the copper- wrapped iron rod projects above the asphalt at the top. The
jars’ inner walls show evidence of corrosion. No wires were recovered:
they may have been overlooked or corroded away. It is worth noting that
very thin bronze “needles” have been found with similar jars (lacking
cylinders) in the same region. The materials and construction seem to
suggest a primitive galvanic cell. Modern experiments demonstrate that
replicas of the Baghdad batteries produce a feeble 0.5 volt current, using
a 5 percent electrolyte solution, with substances available in antiquity
such as grape juice, vinegar, wine, or sulfuric or citric acid. If strung to-
gether and connected, a cluster of the jars might produce a higher output,
enough to give a mild shock akin to static electricity.