"The uniques sassis of Matera" a Matera Travel Page by metteks

The houses of Matera are the unique sassis, which are houses carved into the rock of the valley where the town is situated.

The place is now a Unesco World Heritage Site and the sassis are now trendy houses, but it wasn’t always this way. Until the late 1950’s the sassis were home to 15.000 people and stock animals as well. The change came when the government built new houses and with force relocated the inhabitants of the sassis.

The region of Matera, Basilicata is and was the poorest region of Italy, where starvation and malaria flourished. The government eradicated this with a huge effort and a lot of development money.

The family, with an average of about 6 children slept together with the animals, a cow, a goat and some hens in the small caves. Not surprisingly the infant mortality was over 50 %.

There are two sassi areas, Barisano and Caveoso. Here you’ll find two rock churches and Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario, which is a refurnished sassi to show how the inhabitants lived in the sassis. Also the town has a Museo della Tortura, a Torture Museum.

This picture shows the rock church Santa Maria d’ldris. It is partly carved into the rock, but here and there you can see places where stones have been built on top.