Earliest recording: 1860

For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words "Mary had a little lamb" on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison's invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades.

The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song "Au Clair de la Lune" was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable -- converted from squiggles on paper to sound -- by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

From the NY Times.

Lions in the Tower

Two medieval skulls found in the Tower of London belonged to a kind of lion that boasted a giant dark mane, according to a genetic study that sheds new light on one of the world's oldest zoos.
A Barbary lion skull that was part of the study

Infamous as a place of torture and executions, and home to the Crown Jewels, the Tower was also home to lions, which were charismatic symbols of monarchy.

Now researchers have used DNA evidence to analyse two members of the royal menagerie, the oldest being late 13th to late 14th century (1280-1385) and 'youngest' 15th century (1420-1480), the only medieval big cat remains found in England.

They conclude that they were male Barbary lions, a species that hails from north Africa, where no natural lion population remains today.

From the Telegraph.

Battle over "Black Swan" treasure continues

Last May, the Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration announced that it had recovered 500,000 gold and silver coins weighing 17 tonnes from a wreck in international waters in the Atlantic and flown them back to the US from Gibraltar.

The company has refused to speculate on the identity - or nationality - of the vessel and has further ratcheted up the intrigue by referring to the find only as the Black Swan.

Despite the secrecy and Odyssey's unwillingness to confirm anything about its discovery, the Spanish government is convinced that the Black Swan is Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. . .

After months of legal wrangling, Odyssey has agreed to reveal the wreck's location to Spain, hand over photographs and documents, and allow experts access to the artefacts it has recovered. . .

Since news of the find emerged last year, some Spanish newspapers have denounced treasure-hunting outfits as "the new pirates of this century" who are hell-bent on ransacking Spain's archaeological heritage for profit.

But Madrid and Odyssey are now facing growing calls from Peru for some, or all, of the Mercedes' cargo to be returned to the South American country.

Peruvian campaigners say that because the gold and silver coins were probably minted from metal taken without permission by the Spaniards, they belong to the modern-day country, not its former colonial master.

From the Guardian.

Speculating in Cuban art

John Crago, an agricultural exporter from Colorado, took a business trip to Cuba last spring. He came back with 60 paintings, from island landscapes to abstract works, rolled up in his carry-on luggage.

With art from Asia and Russia in demand, some in the art world are betting on Cuba to be the next hot corner of the market. Prices for Cuban art are climbing at galleries and auction houses, and major museums are adding to their Cuban collections. In May, Sotheby's broke the auction record for a Cuban work when it sold Mario Carreño's modernist painting "Danza Afro-Cubana" for $2.6 million, triple its high estimate.

Not surprisingly, Americans are finding ways to get to Cuba, legally or otherwise, to shop for art. But it may be that those intrepid travelers are already late to the game:

Works by Cuban artists aren't necessarily less expensive in Havana than in New York or London. With international interest in Cuban art on the rise, Cuban galleries now charge international prices, and many insist on payment in euros.

The article, in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, also notes the difference between Cuba and other countries that have seen dramatic recent increases in the market value of their artists such as India, China, and Russia, in that Cuba has seen no rise in prosperity to fuel homegrown collecting.