2,500 - 2,000 BC - The oldest example of the use of electricity is the Copper Vases, electroplated with silver were once to be found in the Baghdad museum. They had been excavated from Sumerian sites in southern Iraq. (9)

Ancient Egypt - Unconfirmed electroplated objects were reportedly found in Egypt by the 19th Century French Archaeologist August Mariette. Excavating in the area of the sphinx at Ghiza. Mariette came upon a number of artefacts at a depth of 60ft. In the 'Grand Dictionaire Universal du 19th Siecle', he describes the artefacts as "pieces of gold jewellery whose thinness, and lightness make one believe they had been produced by electroplating" (2)

The renowned astronomer Sir J. Norman Lockyer, who studied ancient Egyptian temples and tombs in depth, In his Dawn of Astronomy, in 1894, pointed out an enigma of the time�when he wrote:

"In all freshly-opened tombs there are no traces whatever of any kind of combustion having taken place, even in the inner-most recesses.  So strikingly evident is this that my friend M. Bouriant, while we were discussing this matter at Thebes, laughingly suggested the possibility that the electric light was known to the ancient Egyptians." 

 

Ancient India - In the Prince's Library of Ujjain in India, there is a well preserved document called the 'Agastya Samshita', which dates back to the first millennium BC. It contains a detailed description not only of how to construct an electric battery/cell, but also, how to utilize the battery to 'split' water into its constituent gasses. (2)

The text runs as follows:

�Place a well-cleaned copper plate in an earthenware vessel. Cover it first by copper sulfate and then moist sawdust. After that put a mercury-amalgamated-zinc sheet on top of an energy known by the twin name of Mitra-Varuna. Water will be split by this current into Pranavayu and Udanavayu. A chain of one hundred jars is said to give a very active and effective force.�

South America - Two 90ft Sq. Sheets of 'Mica' were found sandwiched between horizontal courses of a pyramid in Bolivia at Tiahuanaco early in the 20th century. One was broken up and sold to the electrics industry, the other remains in situ. (Mica is an insulator and was commonly used as a dielectric in capacitors up to recent times). The nearest source of Mica is hundreds of miles away in the Amazon basin.

600 - 580 BC - Thales of Miletus, Ionia, one of the "seven wise men of Greece" (the others being Solon, Chilo, Piccatus, Bias, Cleobolus and Periander), founder of the Ionic Philosophy, and from whose school came Socrates, is said to have been the first to observe the electricity developed by friction in amber. (3)

320 BC - A Ptolemaic inscription describes how wooden flagstaff's, 30m tall, were placed in front of temples and capped with a sheath of copper, and used to 'Cut the lightning from the sky'. (2)

2nd Century AD - Pausanius wrote that the 'Temple of Minerva had a light that could burn for over a year'. (2)

13th Century AD - When the Sepulcher of Paris was opened near Rome in the early 1400's, it was found to be still lighted by a lantern, which had presumably been alight for over 2,000 yrs. (2)

13th Century AD - Eliphas Levi, in his 'Histoire de la Magie', records the story of a mysterious French Rabi named Jechiele, who was an advisor to Louis IX. Jechiele's contemporary's reported that he often astounded the King with his "Dazzling lamp that lighted itself". The lamp possessed no oil or wick, and Jechiele placed it in front of his house for all to see. Interestingly, another device he was reputed to have had was a door knocker that was ale to produce an electric shock. (2)