The Stone Xylophone of the Highlands
Workers building a road in Vietnam's highlands dug up a set of long stones. Laid in a row and struck, they played a scale.
What was reported
In February 1949, local people building a road near the village of Ndut Liêng Krak in Vietnam's Central Highlands found eleven long, chipped stone slabs. When the French ethnologist Georges Condominas laid them in order and struck them, it was clear they were a musical instrument.
More of these stone instruments, called lithophones, have since been found across the region, and highland peoples still play stone and bamboo instruments today.
Explanations offered
Archaeologists estimate the Ndut Liêng Krak lithophone is around 3,000 years old, making it one of the oldest known musical instruments in Southeast Asia. Its stones were carefully shaped to give a musical scale. It is now held in a museum in Paris.
- When
- Found in 1949; about 3,000 years old
- Where
- Ndut Liêng Krak, Đắk Lắk, Vietnam
- Witnesses
- Road builders and an ethnologist
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.