parcomurgia

Rock churches

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Geology
Prehistory
Rock churches
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Matera
The Murgia Materana Park

The Murgia Materana Park
The Stones, the old districts carved in the rock that develop around the neck of the Dome (the Civita), are the result of increased residential development from medieval times to a site frequented since the Bronze Age.
As the buildings houses of worship, churches and monastic settlements were excavated in the rock.
The large number of Rock Churches in Matera and the immediate surrounding area is one of the hallmarks of the settlement and most spectacular cave in.
Hundred and fifty sites of worship including a time lag that comes from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, closely related to each historical period, social and religious land.
Many rock churches are from rural villages being included in the agro-pastoral, distributed along the slopes of the ravine, and were carved with systems and methods of digging their traditional local.
A network of churches with frescoes, chapels, private monasteries by so noble Lombard, feudal lords and bishops, As the Byzantine state, to ensure widespread presence and a Christian education to rural populations, and an attraction to the economic organization of the territory.
At the same time this strip of territory, becomes attractive for the Eastern and Western monastic settlement away from the numerous devastations that shook the time.
Presenze che adattandosi alla tradizione preesistente del vivere in grotta la rinnovarono e l’arricchirono cercando nell’ombra delle grotte un intimo avvicinamento a Dio.

Due to restoration work, the rock churches of Murgia Timone (St. Nicholas Appia, San Falcione, Sant’Agnese, San Biagio, Madonna of the three doors, Madonna of the crosses) they cannot be visited. Restiamo in attesa di prossime comunicazioni dell’Ente Parco.