Pompeii clay pot serves as ancient audio recording device?

[semillama]

My co-worker found this over the weekend. He speaks some French, and apparently some French archaeologists are claiming that grooves on one clay pot found from Pompeii recorded voices and sounds from the pottery workshop as the pot was being made. The link is below, with a video that includes a sound recording that purports to be the audio record on the pot. If there are any fluent French-speaking DUer's, maybe you could read the website and listen to the video, and let us know what they are claiming. I googled this subject and found nothing. so, is it a hoax? or are they on the up and up?

http://www.zalea.org/article.php3?id_article=496

If true, this is pretty mindblowing.

[Skink]

1. Let me know when they unearth some CD'S

[Vinnie From Indy]

7. It seems The Stones played in Pompeii

They found some bootlegs in the rubble

[ClassWarrior]

11. Actually, the Pink Floyd movie was shot in the ruins of Pompeii...

Oh you mean BEFORE the volcano.

LOL

NGU.

[seriousstan]

2. It is possible, if the grooving tool could pick up sound vibration.

I highly doubt that it would be "detailed" enough to make out words.

[ewagner]

3. And what happens

if they play it BACKWARDS? :scared:

[BlueEyedSon]

4. "turn me on volcano, turn me on volcano, turn me on volcano....."

[HereSince1628]

5. "Ignore it, that volcano is no risk."

[ewagner]

6. LOL

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[mark11727]

9. "No one could have predicted that Vesuvius would explode..."

...days of rumbling to the contrary.

[On the Road]

8. You Have to Hand it to the Kooks,

their new theories are getting extremely creative.

[crikkett]

10. This is entirely plausible. And exciting!

Loosen the tight grip that 'reality' has on your imagination.

[FloridaPat]

12. Didn't they do this on a CSI episode? The video of the pot sounded

French. It might have been a different pot than the one at Pompeii. The one at Pompeii should have been in old Italian.

[semillama]

13. You can make out words in that?

all I hear is clanking and a snatch of conversation. And they should be speaking in Oscan, which was the language the citizens of Pompeii spoke.

I admit it sounds pretty fishy to me, but since I don't speak French, I have no idea what they are saying or if the website is legit or not.

[FloridaPat]

15. I don't speak French either. It just sounded like French. What you

heard is what I heard too. Just snatches of conversation.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. I think this one is fake...but the idea is serious (citation).

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/ANE-DIGEST/2001/v2001.n073

> It's a seventh season episode of the _X-Files_ called
> "Hollywood A.D.". If you are really curious, there's
> an episode synopsis on the X-Files website.
>
> http://www.thexfiles.com/episodes/season7/7x19.html

At the San Diego science museum they have a little exhibit that demonstrates the feasiblity of the project. It's not much just a little pot on a wheel illuminated by laser that reads the "grooves" in a pot and plays back the sound of the wood scraper. No voices, or music playing in the background. Just a dull scratching sound of wood against clay. But the idea is intriquing and might turn into something someday.

Rick

19.The video ends with a latin quote, "credo quia absurdum", meaning "I believe it because it is absurd". That piqued my curiosity because I thought it might be an indication that the story was a fake. The story is incredible and it might be true, but the bit in the end when the scientist says that they'll sell the CD in stores soon was a bit too much.

So I investigated a bit more, and I'm sorry to report that the story is a fake. See for yourself:
http://www.bilgesehir.com/c_filmo_principale/e_vases_sonores/Bilge%20Sehir%20-%20Vases%20sonores.htm

The author of the clip, Bilge Sehir (as acknowledged on the story link) acknowledges that the story was for an april fool's edition on Belgian TV (at the top: "Poisson d'avril de journal televise", translates to: "April fools newscast")

Editorial comment: Within the last couple of years, I have read a SF story about this phenomenon. Unfortunately, I can't remember the author. But he based his story on an actual archaeological paper. There is a style of pottery decoration in which a vase on a potter's wheel is incised with a pointed tool while being spun, with the potter guiding the tool up or down to produce a long helical track covering the whole vase. The resemblance to direct audio recording on an old-fashioned gramophone led the archaeologists to try this. IIRC the sound "recovered" was not spectacular, and it wasn't clear if the method was successful. I'd post a link to the story if I could remember which it was.

Found this, at http://yarchive.net/physics/ancient_recordings.html

"Not actually Asimov. The science fiction story was written by Greg
Benford ("Time Shards" 1979). And the germ of the idea wasn't original
with him, though he did a lot with it (it was suggested by one Richard
Woodbridge in Proceedings of the I.E.E.E. 1969, pp. 1465-6). I suppose
I had it in mind when making the simile. But it's not a very good
retort. The quality of recording of such things sucks. They did do
some experimentation. You hear potter's wheel, and that not very well.

Steve"

[Lithos]

20. A similar idea was done in the 1972 movie _The Stone Tape_

Where the stone walls have recorded the death of a victorian maid. Eventually they discover an older recording underlying that one of something else. Actually a very imaginative story.

[MrMonk]

18. They did it on an X-files episode.

[greyl]

14. The movie was made for an April Fools TV broadcast.

It's a hoax. Doesn't it bother anybody that the recording is in stereo? ;)

There are theories that "prove" it's possible, but it hasn't been demonstrated yet. afaik

[htuttle]

17. You would really need to attach a large sound-collecting cone...

...to the stylus you carve the grooves into the clay with to have any hope of picking up any sound. And it would be kind of hard to work the clay with huge gramophone-sized cones on your tools.

But in theory, I suppose it's possible. :)

[Orrex]

21. Additionally

The execrable film Sensation featured this plot device back in 1995.

[semillama]

19. Thanks, Folks!

I knew DU could provide the answer!