Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, along with other collaborators, have recovered the earliest-yet-discovered human sound recording, made 17 years before Thomas Edison’s famed sound recordings.

The lab worked alongside the First Soundsinitiative team to reconstruct a 10-second clip of a woman singing “Au Clair de la Lune” that dates back to 1860.

“(The recording) had definite tones and, in addition, with a little imagination, (you) can hear the words,” said Earl Cornell, a scientist at the lab, who worked on the project.

David Giovannoni, a First Sounds initiative historian who worked on the project, said the initiative’s collaborators had set out to uncover early sound recordings.

“Last year a few of us decided that we wanted to hear some of the world’s oldest recordings before we died,” Giovannoni said.