Matera: ‘Ridola’ Museum

The ‘Domenico Ridola’ National Museum was instituted on 9th February 1911 thanks to the donation to the State of an archaeological remains collection which had been grouped together by the Senator Ridola during his research work. The first nucleus of the Museum was located in the seventeenth-century ex-convent of the Clarisse and it contained materials from the Paleolithic Age to the Bronze Age, exposed in wood show-windows. In the middle of the fifties new halls were added to the Museum and in 1976 there was a further enlargement on the occasion of the inauguration of a new display dedicated to the remains found in several zones of the Matera area. After the expansion of its interior collection there was a new structural change in the museum for the opening of new offices, laboratories and stores in 1985. Actually remains of the Prehistorical Age are preserved into the building assembled by Ridola together with recent and important findings of Trasano, among which a singular oven of the Ancient Neolithic Age can be mentioned.

Bernalda - Metaponto: The Archaeological Park

It is a beautiful archaeological area, situated between the mouths of the rivers Bradano and Basento, which overlooks the gulf of Taranto. The site of the ancient ‘Metapontion’ contains what has been saved from the uninterrupted plunder of the past. It shows a town with a regular plan, consisting of long and narrow blocks, with a ‘plateia’ (the main street) and perpendicular secondary streets. The town was connected to the sea through a canal. There are ruins of walls, a theatre built on an artificial bank, the necropolis of ‘Crucinia’, which comprises the ruins of the shrine dedicated to Lycian Apollo and the adjoining Agorà. There are four temples in it: the oldest is dedicated to Athena, the temple of Apollo, the ruins of the temple of Hera in Doric style and the temple dedicated to Aphrodite. There are two ovens in the potters' area and the Roman ‘castrum’, perhaps built to give shelter to a garrison. It is also possible to admire the ruins of an early Christian church with a baptistery.

Grumento Nova: Grumentum Archaeological Area

Not far from Grumento Nova there is the ‘Parco Archeologico di Grumentum’. The ruins of the old town are on a small hill between the Sciaura Stream and the Agri River. The structure of this town was very simple, with three main streets and several lanes that crossed them. The town was surrounded by 3-km long walls, with six entrances. Of the ruins of the Roman Grumentum three monumental complexes remain. The first one is composed of a theatre of the Augustan Age, two small temples of the Imperial Age and a patrician ‘domus’, the House with the Mosaics. The second corresponds to the old Forum. On the Northern side there is the ‘Capitolium’ and on the Southern there is the ‘Cesareo’. On the Western side there used to be some other buildings and the rest of the perimeter was surrounded by arcades. The third is formed by the ruins of the amphitheatre, built in the I century and changed during the Imperial Age.

Venosa: Archaeological Park

In the Archaeological Park of Venosa there are memories of a centre that still keeps its wonderful monuments. The Amphitheatre, the baths, the domus, the complex of SS. Trinità testify vanitas, symbol of an ancient splendour. With its historical heritage, it retraces a privileged route that allows an immersion into a glazed atmosphere wrapped around places and monuments. In this enchanted town a tourist can taste ancient things and explore places of great fascination.