Two recent news stories – from very different parts of the world – help to confirm what we’ve known for a very long time: namely that sound was an integral part of ancient spiritual practices and that resonance was a key "technology" that was recognized, understood, and used, by the ancients.

Iegor Reznikoff of the University of Paris recently discovered that paintings in the famous prehistoric French caves (at Niaux and Le Portel in Ariege, Arcy-sur-Cure in Burgandy, and others) were located at the spots where the caves naturally exhibited the greatest levels of acoustic resonance. He presented his finds at Acoustics08 in Paris.

The full story can be read Here.

Next, we jump several thousand years, and several thousands miles, to the Aztec empire in central America where recent discoveries have shed light on that cultures use of sound to produce altered states of consciousness, heal disease, frighten enemies and ease the soul’s transition in to the afterlife. 

The research of Roberto Velazquez, Arnd Adje Both, and other researchers in this fascinating area, are detailed in the article found Here. In particular the article focuses on the sounds created by the so-called "Aztec Death Whistles."

All this aligns beautifully with the things we’ve seen and experienced in our travels: from Egypt to Thracian temples or Byzantine Cathedrals, sounds was a powerful spiritual tool throughout the ancient world.

Click Here to listen to some toning inside the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid (from our free podcast Spirit of Place).

And finally here’s a pretty cool YouTube video about the "Rosslyn Music Ciphers" – a series of 13 symbols/notations carved into the stonework of the infamous Rosslyn Chapel. Stuart Mitchel decoded these symbols into musical tones. Watch what happens when he performs a "cymatics" test on the resulting sounds: the cymatics patterns match the original stone symbols!