Clay jars. Iron rods. Copper cylinders. When filled with an acidic solution — grape juice, vinegar — they produce between 1.5 and 2 volts of electric current. This is 2,000 years before the first recognized electrical device. No text from the period explains their function. No wiring or connected apparatus has been found.

Wilhelm König, the archaeologist who identified them in 1938, submitted a formal hypothesis that they were galvanic cells. He was not taken seriously. The objects are now in the Iraq Museum.

Three identical objects discovered at a secondary site in 1947 are not in the Iraq Museum. Their location is 封存. The secondary site's excavation records list a final entry dated 15.03.1947 and then nothing. The archaeologist's name on those records does not appear in any other professional documentation before or after that date.

The voltage produced by the jars, when measured in a specific configuration, resonates at 7.83 Hz. König noted this in his private correspondence but not in his published hypothesis.