Casa Noha: Reading the Sassi as a City
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Begin at Casa Noha, near the cathedral ridge, before descending into the Sassi. From here the topography makes sense: two major cave districts, Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano, fall away into the Gravina ravine.
UNESCO describes Matera as an outstanding troglodyte settlement, but “cave city” can mislead. Many dwellings are hybrid structures: rooms cut into rock, masonry facades built outward, roofs serving as streets or terraces for the level above. Water management was equally important. Cisterns and channels turned scarce rainfall into an urban resource.
So do not imagine isolated cave dwellers. Imagine a dense, vertical neighbourhood in which one household’s roof could be another household’s route home. Privacy was negotiable; gravity was non-negotiable.
The longevity of settlement here is genuine, but claims that one specific cave has been continuously inhabited for nine thousand years are usually tourism shorthand, not a demonstrable household biography. Matera’s history is extraordinary enough without assigning a lease to the Neolithic.