Ancient Aztec - Recreated Sounds

Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.

But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years. When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle. If death had a sound, this was it.

Roberto Velazquez believes the Aztecs played this mournful wail from the so-called Whistles of Death before they were sacrificed to the gods.

The 66-year-old mechanical engineer has devoted his career to recreating the sounds of his pre-Columbian ancestors, producing hundreds of replicas of whistles, flutes and wind instruments unearthed in Mexico's ruins.

Among Velazquez's replicas are those that emit a strange cacophony so strong that their frequency nears the maximum range of human hearing.

Chronicles by Spanish priests from the 1500s described the Aztec and Mayan sounds as sad and doleful, although these may have been only what was played in their presence.

Velazquez meticulously researches each noisemaker before replicating it. He travels across Mexico to examine newly unearthed wind instruments, some dating back to 400 B.C. and shaped like animals or deities. He studies reliefs and scans 500-year-old Spanish chronicles.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ancient
• aztec
• maya
• mayan
• ruins
• sounds
• music
• pyramid
• sacrafice
• mexico
• guatemala
• central
• south
• america

[makayla415]

The Indegenous people came up with the concept of ZERO, Europeans learn it from Arabs. Our mathematics and knowledge of Astronomy was perfect. The Maya had accurately calculated the Bing Bang. The average life expactancy of Europeans during the the 15th century was about 35 years. my ancestors all had a average life expectancy of 72 years.

We had universities, libraries, astronomical observatories. They had the largest cities in the world and sacredly preserved their natural enviroment.

[makayla415]

They are not called Aztecs. They never called themselves Aztecs. They are my ancestors the Mexica pronouced

Me-shee-ka. The root word of Mexico.

[DARVGH1]

@MushroomedAnymore the ancient american people were more democratic that any ancient european civilization...

[MushroomedAnymore]

Ancient Aztecs: Mass Sacrifice of Warrior Captives/Christianity: Mass Burnings, Hangings and even Flayings of Heretics and Pagans for 2000 years. But one culture gave you sexual and body freedom and the other didn't. Both were in need of Ahimsa, but Christians were nurturing a wicked demi-urge posing as Godhead. Thank the Gods for Democracy, but a true Christian knows Theocracy is his/her way!

[tichergeorge]

@MegaMuslim lol god was the asshole really i mean he tried to end the human race :l

[carlochuckt]

Maybe the sound is tied to their soul somehow? Atranformation of the souls energy once the heart has stopped. That would make the whistler that skulls "god",or master?

[MEXICANMADESTWR]

100 BABY!!

[DaniaAlexandraOliva]

I had one of those small ones when I was growing up ,we use to play it all the time it was so loud it would hurt my ear's . I never found them again ,I think my mom put them away . Never saw them again and forgot I had one till I saw this video .

[DaniaAlexandraOliva]

I had one of those small ones when I was growing up ,we use to play it all the time it was so loud it would hurt my ear's . I never found them again ,I think my mom put them away . Never saw them again and forgot I had one till I saw this video .

[Cuah123]

I've seen wheeled toys from excavation sites in jalisco mexico...they had the wheel, i was sacred therefore was not left sitting around.

[TheRaffleTube]

@MegaMuslim Troll harder.

[TheRaffleTube]

LOL@ the cultural chauvinists.

COME ON GUYS WE'RE ALL COOL!

Anyway--man, beautiful and haunting. I wish I could hear them all played together in song.