| The so called "Rupestral Culture" is the set of complex and diverse social and cultural realities, civil and religious, related to the experience of living in caves, which have affected the Sixth to the Thirteenth century the whole of Southern Italy, continental and insular. In cave-dwellings and cave-churches we find a extensive documentation concerning the life, religious values, social organization, construction techniques and the artistic expressions of the Middle Ages in Apulia.
The environmental conditions have in fact resulted in a different way to invent and create a built form, using specific structural layouts. In this adaptation to specific environmental conditions is gathered, on the one hand, the originality and specificity of the solutions adopted, on the other hand, the cultural continuity that characterizes urban schemes, configuration spaces, art forms.
The rupestral phenomenon in the medieval period is of particular importance, with two distinct periods of maximum development: the first is placed in the first half of the 10th century, during the second Byzantine colonization, and the second between the end of the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, during the Norman and Swabian period.
The most important room of all the rock settlement is the church.
The typology of churches varies widely from the square shape with the addition of an apse and some niches (especially typical of the more archaic solutions, referring to the IX - XI century), up to very complex plans, in which the squares are transformed into trapezoids isosceles, and whose overall effect is the characteristic fan-shaped device for better light diffusion.
The influence of Byzantium is also notable sacred iconography, even many centuries after the expulsion of the Byzantines from Puglia. The icons of saints and devotional subjects typical of the Eastern tradition as the Christ Pantocrator, the Deesis, the Virgin and Child, are widespread.
The ravines are natural formations from the unusual and unique features that characterize the landscape and morphology of the Ionian Province. In the Province of Taranto, Brindisi, Lecce and Bari ravines are over three hundred, only the Province of Taranto includes more than one hundred and fifty.
The "gravine" (ravines) are formed at the step topography that, from the 400 meter high plateau Murgia, leads to 50 to 100 meters where the coastline begins. All along the perimeter of the Murgia plateau valleys more or less parallel to the branch to the Adriatic and Ionian Sea. They are characterized by a milder slope towards the Adriatic coast (and are called "lame"), the steepest and deepest on the Ionian coast ("gravine").
Grottaglie is located at the southern end of the large area characterized by the phenomenon of "living in caves".
The small ravine, known as "Lama dei Pensieri" is located on the south side of the city center. It is divided into two different sections. The walls of the ravine are not overhanging, but only rough.
Erosion on the sidelines of the sulcus there are traces of huts (holes for poles of the Bronze Age). On the bottom are ceramic fragments referable to the Bronze Age and Iron Age, but also of the Hellenistic ceramics and ceramic sealed clear of late Roman Empire.
The medieval settlement of the "Lama dei Pensieri", known as Casalpiccolo, is extremely interesting. It consists of numerous caves on different levels, many of which are obtained through the rehabilitation of natural cavities (already in use since prehistoric times).
The village consists of about twenty caves. Access to the village is by a staircase carved into the rock that comes out near a rock church. The stairway was the end of an old carriage house, destroyed by the construction of the railway. The village was once protected by a tower. Numerous caves, including the church, are now devoid of the facade, because of collapse and human interventions related to the reuse of the caves after their abandonment. |