Matera, Italy

Matera is a town and a province in the region of Basilicata, in the south of Italy.

Apart from an economy which has traditionally been based on agriculture, in the late 1990s the major means of support of Matera, and of other cities around it, is the production of drawing-room furniture.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the town has a population of 57,785 (2001 census).

The province covers an area of 3,447 sq. km, with a 2001 population of 204,239.

Matera is mostly famous in the world for its ancient town and its ancient typical houses, the so-called "Sassi di Matera" (meaning "stones of Matera") which is a prehistorical (troglodyte) settlement, and is suspected to be one of the first human settlements in Italy. This ancient town lays over a small canyon, which has been dug in the course of years by a small water stream, called "Gravina".

This town has many peculiar, unique characters:

• The "Sassi" are houses dug into the tuff rock that characterizes Puglia and Basilicata. Many of these "houses" are really only caverns.

• People still live in the Sassi. Until the late 1980s this was considered a poor people's habit, since these houses are mostly unlivable. But the current local administration, becoming more tourism-oriented, has succeded in making the "Sassi" a nice site, and tuff houses are becoming more livable and attractive.
  Note: many people in the past believed that people only live in the Sassi; perhaps it is better to point out that the main part of Matera's people now live in the modern town.

• There is a great similarity with the prehistoric sites of Jerusalem, which are of the same prehistoric age.

A memorable chapter on Matera, describing the really poor life of people in the south of Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century, is in the book "Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli" (Christ stopped at Eboli) by Carlo Levi.