We have arrived in Matera and have settled in. I don't know if you have heard about the town of Matera, but it is a very different place. For starters, it has been continually inhabited for over 9,000 years. We are told it is the third oldest town/city on earth behind Jericho and Jerusalem. It has that "arid middle east feel." Mel Gibson filmed his "The Passion of the Christ" movie here. So what is the salient aspect I can say about this place: In the district called Sassi, the people here live(d) in caves! In fact I am typing this blog in a cave right now. It is quite a nice cave. It has a tile floor, running water, electricity, toilette, shower, bed, couch, mini bar, satellite dish and espresso. Tastefully decorated with half walls in places to give a multi room feel. But in the end it is a cave. One door in/out and all the walls/ceilings are rock. There is a very nice layer of plaster with lovely painting and decorations. But if you look up you see sand stone and brick. Ann thinks this is wonderful. I am still working it out.
A very short history: 9,000 years ago a group of people left the fertile crescent (Iran/Iraq), looking for a better way of life. They came to Matera and saw southern Italy has no water, no game, no resources and nothing would grow. Thus they quickly turned around and left. However a few saw potential of a future tourist industry and decided to stay.
With no readily available building materials around, the locals built their homes by digging caves in the sand stone cliffs. They call it now "negative architecture" because you are not building something but taking away. Back then, they called it "get me out of this sun and rain." This soil/rock is pretty easy to work. Most likely early man used, as a digging tool, a harder rock they carried from somewhere else. Things got easier with the Iron Age and life was off and running. The Romans came and conquered; Christianity set up shop; and then the modern age.
In most places in southern Italy people moved from caves, to shacks, to buildings... except for the people living in the Sassi. In the 1950s, people started saying, "Hey these people are living in caves! We can't have that." Thus the government forced everyone out into public housing. (I am being a bit disingenuous, conditions were very bad. The area was utterly impoverished and population density grew to an unsustainable point. I saw one report that stated the kids were begging for quinine, because malaria was rampant. There was a 50% infant mortality rate.)
In 1993 UNESCO designated the Sassi of Matera as a World Heritage site and for the past 20 years or so people have been trickling back in to the Sassi . I assume the government now has standards you must meet before you are allowed to live there. A number of hotels, restaurants and B&Bs have sprung up to cater to the burgeoning tourist trade. Ann and I are staying at a very nice one.
Enclosed are a few spectacular photos of the area. In later posts I will tell you all about how the locals lived, the plethora of churches (in caves) and a fun hike we took.
Ciao
bill
