springs, eating and drinking as we did. We were rushed back in time to the 6th century B.C.
This ancient village was once walled up by huge square boulders which created a protective wall for their kingdom and is presently being recreated and reassembled as it once existed.
Here, the walls and parts of foundations to ancient homes were resting in the sun, undisturbed by human life.
Many tracks of this village’s population were lost, making it abstruse and troublesome for anyone to reconstruct a history, but few things did remain; an inscription on a stone, bones of children and men still intact in tombs, and triangular cooked clays which were used to construct weaving machines to make garments. A Lucanian home had been replicated to give the real feel of these ancient houses and the way people once dwelt. Inside we found cool air, and walls made from a mixture of straw “paglia” and cement, which relieved them from the heat of the smoldering sun.
The following day was spent traveling from one town to the next, which were all within close proximity.
We visited the village of Melfi northwest of Acerenza. This is the home to one of the most amazing grottos uncovered to date; the Crypt of Saint Margaret.
Mayor Michelangelo Le Vite explained that this cave was used by monks and once by farmers to stash away pigs. Out of poverty and desperation, not a soul was interested in the ancient frescoes on those walls. These frescoes could have strengthened the truth about their own town’s history, even of history itself. Many told stories of saints, revealing the tragic ends of their lives. And some frescoes pointed out the presences of the Templar knights, by way