The oldest recording in history has been discovered by U.S. audio historians at a Paris archive, Reuters reported Thursday. It was made on April 9, 1860 -- 17 years before Edison's invention of the phonograph -- by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on a device called the phonautograph. The device converted sound waves into a visual image on a sheet of paper, but, unlike Edison's device, was not meant to be played. However, using modern technology the recording has been recreated digitally, revealing 10 seconds of a person singing. In an interview audio historian David Giovannoni said of the recording, "It's like discovering the world's oldest photograph and learning that the photograph was taken 17 years before the invention of the camera."