Sorry, replying to myself...
After a bit of Googling, apparently the French clip was a 2005 April Fool's
joke. However, someone published a paper in 1969 about the possibility of
recovering sound from ancient pottery and some other researchers did manage to
uncover some sounds. The idea has been used in episodes of CSI and the X-Files
apparently.
qb
Quoting qb(a)f2s.com:
Damn, I thought this was going to be about Pink Floyd!
;-)
I remember seeing something about this right at the very end of a history
programme of some sort on UK TV when I was a child -- probably mid to late
80s.
I'm not sure where the pots were from, it might have been Egypt, but the
principle is the same. I have a doubt at the back of my mind, though, that it
might have been a programme by a non-reputable "historian" (a von Daniken
type)
rather than a bona fide historian.
qb
Quoting Lee Revell <rlrevell(a)joe-job.com>om>:
Forwarded from another list I am on:
From: Mike Cheponis
Date: February 18, 2006 2:48:00 PM PST
Subject: audio recording from - ancient Pompeii !!!
French archaeologists have taken pottery from ancient Pompeii and
played the grooves back like a record to get the sounds of the
pottery workshop, including laughter. Click "Telecharger la video" to
play the short video which contains a sample of the audio.
<http://www.zalea.org/article.php3?id_article=496>
I can't understand a word of it, can someone fluent in French tell me
whether this seems legit?
Lee