As early as the 10th century BC, ancient civilizations such as ancient Egypt, Babylon and India had collected natural asphalt for construction, anti-corrosion, bonding, decoration, and pharmaceuticals. The ancient Egyptians could even estimate the amount of oil seeping out of oil seedlings . There are also records in cuneiform writing about the extraction of natural oil along the coast of the Dead Sea. “It glued the high walls of Jericho and Babylon, and Noah’s Ark and Moses’ baskets may have been waterproofed with asphalt joints as was customary at the time.”
In the 5th century AD, near Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire, oil wells dug by hand appeared. The earliest use of oil for war was also in the Middle East. According to the book “Oil, Money, Power”, Homer’s famous book “The Iliad” narrates that “the Trojans kept throwing fire on the fast ship, and the ship suddenly burst into flames that were difficult to extinguish”.
In the 7th century AD, the Byzantines mixed oil and lime, ignited it and shot it with bows and arrows, or threw it with their hands to attack enemy ships. The Baku region of Azerbaijan is rich in oil and gas seedlings. Residents here have collected oil from oil seedlings as fuel for a long time, and also used it to treat skin diseases of camels. In 1827, there were 52 artificially dug oil production pits, which increased to 82 in 1837, but the output was very small.
In Europe, from Bavaria in Germany, Sicily and the Po River Valley in Italy, to Galicia and Romania in Poland, people have recorded oil seeping from the ground since the Middle Ages. In the 1840s and 1850s, a pharmacist in Lviv made a kerosene lamp with the help of a blacksmith. In 1854, kerosene for lamps had become a commodity on the Vienna market. In 1859, 36,000 barrels of oil were extracted in Europe, mainly from Galicia and Romania.

CSA464AE HIEE400106R1 ABB Monitoring Module