Interesting you should mention this, as a very old publication on a  
collecting expedition to Indonesia reported traditional "singing pots" that had  
been in the possession of some families for generations. I always thought it 
was  legend, but I suppose some sort of scratched design might actually 
transmit  sound in certain wind conditions?
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
 
 
In a message dated 6/1/2009 11:40:37 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Yes- I  remember that talking pot, too, from an article I read during my 
first year as  a grad student. I could never remember the source, and was 
always suspicious  that it was wishful thinking by the researcher. They claimed 
to have a  recorded a shout, but maybe scratches on a pot just sound like 
shouts- who  would ever know?

Marty Pickands
New York State  Museum
>>> Susan Walter <[log in to unmask]> 06/01/09 12:29 PM  >>>
This is really neat!  Literal VOICES from the  past.
Decades ago in one of the San Diego museums in Balboa Park, there was  the
neatest display and recording...an ancient pot, while being made on  a
potter's wheel, had apparently also recorded voices...I think it was in  the
Aerospace Museum for an exhibit on technology.  I was distracted  at the 
time
as a chaperone for 30 some odd children on a field trip, but  always thought
that those sounds were so magnificent...
----- Original  Message ----- 
From: "Bob Skiles" <[log in to unmask]>
To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 7:54 AM
Subject:  earliest audio recordings NOT made by Edison


Researchers unveil  imprints made 20 years before Edison invented phonograph
...
WASHINGTON  - The muffled sounds from more than 150 years ago resemble the
"wa wa" of  the unseen teacher in the Peanuts cartoons. It would be
impossible to know  that someone was playing the coronet and guitar, 
although
other fragments,  from a dramatic speech from Shakespeare's Othello, might 
be
discerned if  you knew the lines by heart in French.

Yet these sound bites and other  snippets, unveiled May 29 by historians at
the annual meeting of the  Association for Recorded Sound Collections, are
the earliest known  recordings. A bunch of wavy lines scratched by a stylus
onto fragile paper  that had been blackened by the soot from an oil lamp 
date
from 1857. That's  20 years before Edison invented the phonograph ... (story
continues ...  with lovely images ... at link  below):

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/44267/title/Earliest_known_sound_
recordings_revealed


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