[ti:Ancient Instrument Still Plays After 18,000 Years]
[by:www.21voa.com]
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[00:01.04]A large conch shell brought little attention in a French museum
[00:07.00]for many years, but it is now quickly gaining attention.
[00:13.96]The shell is thought to be the oldest known seashell instrument.
[00:21.32]And it still works, producing a deep sound,
[00:25.80]like a foghorn from the distant past.
[00:30.56]The shell was found during the exploration of a cave
[00:36.08]with prehistoric wall paintings in the Pyrenees Mountains in southwestern France.
[00:44.60]It was believed to be a ceremonial drinking cup.
[00:50.48]Scientists from the University of Toulouse in France
[00:54.92]recently took a fresh look at the conch shell.
[01:00.16]They now believe it was changed thousands of years ago
[01:04.96]to serve as a wind instrument.
[01:09.12]They also invited a French horn player to play it.
[01:15.28]“Hearing it for the first time, for me it was a big emotion”
[01:20.68]and caused some worry, said archaeology researcher Carole Fritz.
[01:29.44]She feared that playing the 31-centimeter-long shell
[01:35.00]might damage it, but it did not.
[01:39.80]The horn produced clear musical notes in C, C sharp and D.
[01:48.84]The researchers estimate it to be about 18,000 years old.
[01:57.36]Their findings appeared Wednesday in the publication Science Advances.
[02:05.60]Conch shells have been used widely in musical and ceremonial traditions,
[02:13.40]including in ancient Peru, Greece, Japan and India.
[02:21.08]The shell instrument found in the Marsoulas cave
[02:26.44]is now the oldest known example.
[02:31.44]Earlier, Gilles Tosello, another archaeologist in Toulouse,
[02:37.56]said a conch shell instrument found in Syria
[02:42.40]was estimated to be about 6,000 years old.
[02:48.84]The latest discovery was made after a recent inventory
[02:54.88]at the Natural History Museum of Toulouse.
[03:00.24]The researchers noticed some unusual holes in the shell.
[03:07.08]Especially important is that the end of the shell was broken off.
[03:14.52]That created a hole large enough to blow through.
[03:20.24]Inspections with a microscopic showed
[03:23.60]that the opening was made by humans.
[03:28.36]It was not accidental breakage or wear, Tosello said.
[03:35.40]By putting a small medical camera into the shell,
[03:40.60]the researchers found that another hole
[03:43.96]had been carefully made farther inside.
[03:48.96]They also found evidence of red coloring on the mouth of the conch.
[03:55.88]It matched a design found on the wall of Marsoulas cave.
[04:03.92]“This is classic, really solid archaeology,” said Margaret Conkey.
[04:11.20]She is an archaeologist at the University of California, Berkeley
[04:16.44]but was not involved in the research.
[04:21.08]This discovery reminds us that ancient people’s lives
[04:25.88]were more complex than making stone tools
[04:29.56]and hunting large animals, she said.
[04:33.96]Marsoulas cave is not near an ocean.
[04:39.20]So the prehistoric people must have either moved around
[04:44.28]or traded to get the shell, Conkey and the researchers said.
[04:51.20]“What makes conch shells so interesting is that the spiral” part
[04:57.12]formed by nature is great at making music, said Rasoul Morteza.
[05:05.80]He is a musician in Montreal, Canada,
[05:09.76]who has studied how sound is made with conch shells.
[05:15.52]He also was not involved in the paper.
[05:20.80]Using a model of the shell, the archaeologists
[05:25.56]plan to continue studying the horn’s sounds.
[05:31.56]Tosello said he hopes to hear the ancient instrument
[05:36.88]played inside the cave where it was found.
[05:42.52]It is wonderful when an object is forgotten somewhere
[05:47.28]and suddenly it “comes again into the light,” he said.
[05:53.48]I’m Alice Bryant. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM