“Kukulkan Temple, at the Chichen Itza archaelogical site in Mexico, isn't just an impressive architectural achievement. It also uses physics to make bird calls. That's right, a stone temple has the ability to mimic the sounds a local bird.”
“The calls are all good imitations of the quetzal bird, a spiritually important animal to the 12th century Mayans. The staccato sound of two hands clapping together gets transformed, in echoes, to the drawn-out falling tone of the bird. How the hell does that happen? David Lubman, an acoustical consultant, took a look. It seems that the steps of the temple form a Bragg diffraction grating. Diffraction is what happens when a wave hits an object and spreads out.” (https://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-how-this-ancient-mayan-pyramid-makes-bird-calls-1692327818)
Video demonstration here: