We report the first observation of excitation of the 6.2 keV nuclear level of ' 'Ta by synchrotron radiation. The absolute energy of the level was determined to be 6214~2 eV. The time distribution of nuclear forward scattering of synchrotron radiation by a 7.5 p, m Ta metal foil was measured, and a decay time of 530~80 ns was observed. Analysis of the time distribution reveals an inhomogeneous broadening of the nuclear resonance in this sample 6~2 natural linewidths.PACS numbers: 76.80.+y, 27.70.+q, 78.70.Ck The recent rapid development of hyperfine nuclear resonance spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation [1] indicates that this method will become a standard technique in the near future. The broadband, pulsed, well-collimated, and highly polarized synchrotron radiation is very differ-