Architetture di terra nel Meridione calabro-lucano. Dalla sibaritide ai paesi e alle campagne dell’entroterra

Earth architecture, widespread and still used today in many Ita- lian regions, reveals characteristics of great interest in southern Calabria and Basilicata, both in urban areas, with entire historic centres built in raw earth, unique in Italy, and in rural areas, with isolated or grouped buildings of great variety. Used since ancient times, its presence begins to be attested by archaeological exca- vations in Tito, Metaponto, Vibo Valentia, Reggio Calabria and Locri and, more recently, by studies concerning its application in the construction of classical tem- ples in the Sibaritite region, which have led to investigations into its use throughout Magna Graecia, reflecting the numerous contemporary constructions on the Balkan peninsula, with subsequent developments in the Roman era. Its copious use in the Middle Ages – particularly in the primitive expressions of many villages – and in the following centuries is documented both by reintegra- tions, travel reports, land registers, descriptions of seismic damage, statistics and surveys, in addition to scientific research produced to date, and by the artefacts themselves, preserved from earthquakes and recent tampering. There are many examples and, as has always been the case with all building mate- rials, there are two intertwined forms of use: popular, modest in design, and cultu- red, also influenced by classicism, which, within the limits of clay materials, have nevertheless produced impressive construction techniques based almost exclusively on the use of raw bricks, composed of earth and vegetable aggregates or crushed stone, assisted by plaster and mud binders. Hence the different types, which from the western and eastern Apennines of Luca- nia, down to the Crati Valley, Lametino, Vibonese and Reggino, are expressed in terraced houses of various designs, small palaces, farms, industrial buildings, hou- ses and country cottages, huts and boundary walls, which still today bear witness to a culture in need of attention, also with a view to possible reuse, made safe given the seismic risks, and therefore requiring accurate interdisciplinary historical, anthropological and technical investigations1, including architectural and urban surveys, with the certainty of attesting to a continuity of use spanning almost three millennia, linking these expressions to the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern context where this phenomenon has its roots.