Archeonaut - APT Basilicata

TheArchaeologicalArea and NationalMuseum inMetapontoVia Aristea, 21 – Ortschaft Metaponto - tel. (+39) 0835 745327Öffnungszeiten: Montag 14.00 – 20.00;Dienstag – Sonntag 9.00 – 20.00 - Geschlossen: MontagmorgenThe Archaeological Areaand National Museum in MetapontoThe historian Strabo tells us thatMetapontum arose in the mid-8th centuryBC upon the ruins of a previous Greeksettlement (already in the locality; likeIncoronata di Pisticci and Siris itself, smallGreek communities had arisen built bypeople from the Peloponnese who hadcome in search of fertile lands).The Greek colony, in fact, was establishedin 630 BC.Who were its founders?They may have been part of the Achaeanarmy that had destroyed Troy, or commonpeople motivated by the prospect of abetter existence and probably sent to callother Achaeans already settled in Sibari.What is certain, however, is that they gaverise to a flourishing and productive colonythat always maintained contact with themother country.Metapontum (whose first name wasMetabos, like the hero, to whom asanctuary was also dedicated) arosebetween the mouths of two rivers, theBradano and the Basento. The newinhabitants gave it an urban connotation,provided it with perpendicular streetsand drained the countryside around it,creating a chora, or farming territoryenhanced by the necessary infrastructurefor the development of a colony: temples,theatres, sanctuaries and later on a fullyfledgedcraftwork district, just like inAthens: the kerameikòs.At first these places were inhabited by Choniand Oenotrians. These were, nevertheless,inhabitants of ancient Greek stock who hascome to this area of Basilicata a full “17generations before the war of Troy”, as weare informed by the historian Dionysiusof Alicarnasso. When Metapontum wasfounded, the area had already had a longexperience of men and women who livedbetween Incoronata, Termitito and othersites that have that have provided overthe course of the excavations weapons,utensils and jewels, as well as indicationsof how they must have lived, provided theirfood, understood the passage of time andthe events of daily life during the archaicera of this colony.The urban structure of Metapontumdisplays the typical signs of all the coloniesin Magna Graecia, inspired by the customs,rites and cults of the mother country.In the items they manufactured andin their architecture, the colonies thatwere first established there reproducedmodels from their places of origin; thenexchanges and comparisons with thelocal populations and those that hadarrived from the sea began, techniqueswere customised and life became dividedinto many activities that gradually made itmore refined and evolved.39