 |
| 3316 View of Sasso Caveoso in Matera, from the Murge |
Lying in a small canyon carved out by the Gravina River, Matera is known as la città sotterranea (the underground city), because its historical centre Sassi contains a complex of houses, churches, monasteries and hermitages built into the natural caves of the Murgia. This remarkable and intact troglodyte settlement contains more than a thousand dwellings and a large number of shops and workshops. The morphology of the territory, characterized by deep ravines (gravine) and bare highland plateaus, integrated with ancient cave churches, shepherd tracks marked by wells, and fortified farmhouses, form one of the most evocative landscapes of the Mediterranean.
The site was first occupied from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era with occupation of the natural caves intensifying from the 8th century, when the city started to overshoot the boundaries of the defensive walls dated to the Roman Age and constructed all around the part of the city called Civita, which was the first inhabited nucleus. The earliest houses in the settlement were simple caves enclosed by a wall of excavated blocks on the two grabiglioni, Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano. A Romanesque cathedral was built on the Civita between the two Sassi in the 13thcentury.
About the stamp
The stamp is part of the series Italian Squares, about which I wrote here.
Sender: Dana Volosevici
Sent from Matera (Basilicata / Italy), on 08.01.2018
Photo: Michele Masciandaro / 1979
No comments:
Post a Comment