Matera, located in the Basilicata region of Italy, near to the border with Puglia, is a city like no other on earth.
Visually it is stunning. The pale buildings sprawl over the top of the ravine on which it is built. There are houses and churches dug into the very rock itself, some of which date back to Paleolithic times.
Matera is famous for the Sassi, two neighbourhoods of cave dwellings which in 1993 were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for being ‘the most outstanding, intact example of a troglodyte settlement in the Mediterranean region.’ Matera’s Sassi have been lived in almost continuously for around ten thousand years, making it one of the most ancient places on the planet.
However, living conditions in the 1940s were dire. Carlo Levi’s book Christ Stopped at Eboli highlighted the appalling plight of these forgotten people and in the 1950s the government was shamed into rehousing the entire population.
The subsequent renaissance of Matera by local people has been astounding and inspiring.The fact it has now come to the attention of the world as the new European Capital of Culture 2019 is only fitting for a city that has seen so much and has so much more to offer.
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