Archaeologists Discover 1200 Year Old Telephone

The twelve hundred year old telephone, a marvel of ancient invention, surprises almost all who hear about it. Reportedly found in in the ruins of Chan Chan, Peru, the delicate communication artifact is thought to have been made 1,200 to 1,400 years ago. The device is the earliest and best example of a “technology” in the region.

Experts say it is the earliest known example of telephone technology in human history. It gives evidence of the level of sophistication of the pre-Columbian technological society that existed 1,000 years before Alexander Graham Bell, the Scottish-born engineer who invented the modern telephone in 1833. Chan Chan is perhaps the largest pre-columbian city in South America that most of us never heard of.

The early “telephone” appears to be a rudimentary speech transmission device, much like the “lover’s telephone” that has been known for hundreds of years but which became popular in the 19th century, It was usually comprised of tin cans connected with string, used to speak back and forth; and mostly seen as a novelty. The Chimu telephone is composed out of two gourd tops bound with a length of cord. The gourds that composed the device, around 9 centimeters long, were coated in resin and acted as transmitters and receivers of sound. the device has a line of over 20 meters long connecting the two ends.

The telephone, with the seemingly magical ability to channel voices across space to be heard directly in the ear of the receiver was, “a tool designed for an executive level of communication”.

The 1200 year old telephone is an excellent example of the “lost technologies” of our ancestors, who according to mainstream researchers were not capable of such technological feats.

The Chimu telephone, and many other amazing ancient technologies, remind us that ancient cultures were capable of marvelous inventions, ideas, and creations long before our ‘sophisticated’ modern societies dreamed them up (sometimes for a second time).