TPO 25

In this set of materials, both the reading and the lecture discuss a set of clay jars that had been excavated in Iraq that might use for producing electricity. Although the reading passage provides three theories against this fact, the speaker refutes all of the arguments through several reasons, which will be described in this report.

To start off with, the passage points out that if ancient people wanted to use these clays as electric batteries, they must use other containers besides these two clays, but there is no evidence that any metal wires were located. The lecture, in contrast, rejects this by claiming that the set of clay jars are founded by local people not by archaeologists so that local people might not have either enough information about the importance of other conductors or attract for them. Hence, local people may throw them out or overlook them.

Going through the next approach, the reading passage states that the set of clay jars is similar to the copper cylinder that excavated inside the clay jars. The copper cylinder was used for holding scrolls of sacred texts; therefore, the clay jars used the same purpose as the copper cylinder. However, the professor argues that founding in the same place cannot prove anything. He adds that the clay jars would first produce for holding scrolls of sacred texts. Nevertheless, after some while, people understood that they could produce electricity if they used both water and wires beside the clay jars.

To take into the end, although the passage says that the ancient people would not have enough information about using the electricity, and batteries were useless in those times, the speaker disagrees by mentioning that these batteries could cause a middle shock, and they could be a good device to show magical power. He also said that ancient doctors may have been using these batteries in order to heat the muscles of the patients like modern medicines.