I am terribly excited to receive these acoustic measurements from Prof Gino Innace and his team. The website will be undergoing some dramatic changes this year to do these amazing world heritage sites justice.

For now you can head over to the Acoustic Atlas globe and fly to Italy to find The Witches Valley as well as the Cumaean Sibyl Cave.

“According to the legend, witches were women with magical knowledge that with the use of herbs cured illnesses and performed spells. In 1639, the book “De Nuce Maga Beneventana” described how the place where the “witches” gathered was an area south of the city of Benevento in South Italy in a long and narrow gorge. This valley with high rock walls was called the “stretto di Barba”. According to the legend, under a walnut tree in the “stretto di Barba”, the Longobards were used to perform sacred rituals. To make the rituals more effective, the sounds were amplified by the narrow gorge with flat and parallel rock walls”. Researched and recorded by Gino Iannace, Umberto Berardi, and Amelia Trematerra.

“The Cumaean Sibyl cave is a mythological place in the north of Naples, where the Sibyl, a priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle, received the travellers and predicted their future. The cave is length about 140 m, with trapezoidal section excavated in the rock of tuff. The cave has a height of about 4.5 m and it is 2.4 m wide. The legend says that the Sibyl received the travellers in the final part of the cave”. (Prof. Gino Iannace and Umberto Berardi).