M A T E R A

Matera defies easy explanation. On the edge of the Basilicata region of Italy, still a very poor region but Matera was probably the poorest of all. Anytime you read anything about Matera the inescapable line repeated everywhere is that it was until recently considered “The Shame of Italy” for its overcrowding, extreme poverty and unsanitary living conditions. Even as recent as the 1950’s there was still the threat of untamable malaria outbreaks.. The solution finally was to move people out to newly built modern housing estates with running water and electricity. But some remained. ⁣
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This part of Basilicata is mountainous and cut by a ravine, the rock is limestone and easy to carve so there is evidence of civilizations from as far back as the Paleolithic age and then Neolithic, progressing to the use of metal tools of the bronze and iron ages, all present in the same area, hence the claim that Matera is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world (they say 3rd oldest, after Jericho and Byblos). Cavemen caves are still here and the later civilizations have built facades onto these dug out caves to make what looks like houses in these pictures. All stacked and clustered into some kind of honeycombed labyrinth, stone block houses clinging to the cliffs like barnacles. ⁣
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Immediately I got lost and I stayed lost for about 5 hours. GPS doesn’t work here because everything is so multilayered and there are very few street names. You descend, you climb up another side, you go down one alley but you are somehow going up another, it’s like being trapped in an MC Escher puzzle.⁣