# pottery & recording

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 13, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364 "2003-01-13T20:45:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364/1 "2003-01-13T20:45:40Z")

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A while ago I read a theory that posultated something along these lines…  
Pottery, and the potters wheel specifically, could operate as a crude recording device (spinning somewhat like Edison’s wax cylinder)… the upshot of which was that one could somehow “listen” to a piece of pottery and hear what was being said in the room at the time the piece was created.  
Not suprisingly, this was held to be a huge boon to archeology.  
I’m assuming this probably rates as some kind of pseudoscience… but is there any real basis for this? Does anyone still hold this belief or claim they have any “proof” of this phenomena?

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**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364/2 "2003-01-13T20:46:54Z")

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um… that would be “postulated” not “posultated”

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364/3 "2003-01-13T20:47:43Z")

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Wasn’t that an episode of _The X-Files_?

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364/4 "2003-01-13T20:51:05Z")

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Ah, [here](http://www.thexfiles.com/episodes/season7/7x19.html) it is.

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**Author:** ![femtosecond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@femtosecond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femtosecond)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pottery-recording/148364/5 "2003-01-13T22:16:36Z")

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I’ve read about it in David E.H. Jones’ Book _The Inventions of Daedalus_. It includes a letter by Richard G. Woodbridge, stating that he already had done research about what is described in the Daedalus column that appeared in New Scientist, 6. Feb 1969.

Searching for that name gives this page: [http://members01.chello.se/christer.hamp/phono/archaeo/archaeo.html](http://members01.chello.se/christer.hamp/phono/archaeo/archaeo.html)

> [@](#):
>
> So far no ancient sound has been heard, and the experiments conducted have been attempts to reproduce the conditions at which such recordings would have been produced, successful attempts, according to the papers published.