Matera - Filming Location of the Passion of the Christ

After Massafra we headed to Matera.  Matera is one of the earliest inhabited cities in the world with human activity dating back over 7000 years to the Palaeolithic Age.  In the 8th century Benedictine and Basilian monks inhabited the city and left an extensive network of churches and the earliest cave paintings from that period. The city is quite amazing and is built on top of naturally excavated caves, called sassi.  

We had a local guide take us around to show us the city. The town is built around a deep ravine, with the most ancient sassi one side, and a "less ancient" town on the other. 

        

Check out the Matera bread! The loaves are huge, and made from the same start as in Roman times. This one is rather small, but we saw some almost 3 feet long.

The ridge line in the picture below is where The Passion of the Christ was filmed back in 2004.

Cave churches everywhere. The picture of the stone seat is from the underground vaults of San Pietro Barisano, where the bodies of dead priests were seated to "drain" or decompose until only bone was left. There were no cemeteries in the cave towns, so they were not buried. You can see the pictured seat is inscribed, and it belonged to someone named Nicholas.

How bout a drink is the Stone Age Bar? It was an actual bar in Matera.