| Massafra is built on the two opposite edges of San Marco Ravine (Gravina), that divides it in two. The most valuable place of artistic-cultural patrimony in Massafra is the group of rocky churches excavated in caves and ravines for which it is entitled as the Thebaid of Italy.
Its actual name deriving from the Greek word mansafros, shows the caves inhabited by the hermits and confirms the inseparable link between the town and the “underground Apulia of crypts and anchorites” which represents one of the most evocative cultural and anthropological events in Italy. The presence of man in this place is shown by the manifactured artcles found in the ravines and dated to a period between the V millennium and 1800 b.c. |