ANCIENT Peruvian trumpets made from Strombus conch shells may have been used for signalling over large distances, according to a paper presented to a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, earlier this month.
John Rick of Stanford University in California discovered 20 such conches in Peru last year. The 3000-year-old shells had been carved with decorations and modified to create a mouthpiece.
Rick and acoustics consultant David Lubman tried out the trumpets in the lab, and measured a deafening peak output of 111 decibels – about as loud as a piledriver. In the quiet Andean hills the strident sound…
