Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa

Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, a Moroccan qāḍī (judge), travelled over 120,000 kilometres through North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and China from 1325 to 1353, documenting diverse cultures and Islamic societies of the medieval period. --- Echos - Sound Ecosystems in Travelogues is a WebApp connected with a relational database collecting literary descriptions, scores and images of musical events produced during travels around the world, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. Echos - which means sound in ancient Greek - also includes descriptions of sounds from the natural environment. As the climate changes modified the soundscape of cities and geographical areas, history and politics tailored the human musicality during the centuries. Travel narratives offer precious clues to reconstruct the musical ecosystems of oral and written cultures of the past - now ignored or disappeared - contributing to our knowledge of the human musicality and to the preservation of the world natural and cultural heritage. Echos - Sound Ecosystems in Travelogues is an innovative green database supported by the funding PON Research and Innovation of the Italian government; it aims to map lost musical and sound ecosystems of the world as part of the human heritage.