Researchers study the sound of pre-Incan conches

Physorg - 

The sound is ancient and eerie. For a palpable sense of time, blow into the sawed-off spire of a conch. Feel the ache in your lungs and hear the oceanic roar as it vibrates the hefty shell in your hand.

In the Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata, the warriors blew conches to announce battle. In Buddhism, the conch's deep and penetrating drone proclaims the far reach of the dharma. Tibetan monks still use them to summon devotees.

But in the Andean sierra of South America, what did it mean when, three millennia ago, the pre-Incan residents of Chavín de Huántar raised those ornately decorated conch shells to their lips in the underground corridors of their temple ?

Nobody knows for certain. But a few Stanford researchers are determined to find out. The result has led to an unusual collaboration between archaeologists and acousticians, under the auspices of Peru's Ministry of Culture, leading into the rarified realms of psychoacoustics and archaeo-acoustics.

Seed funding for the project came from the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts, a featured program of The Stanford Challenge, a fundraising campaign launched in 2006 and now in its final year.

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