Craco: The Greek Ghost Town in Italy’s Magna Graecia

The country was called “Montedoro” and inhabited by Greeks who moved inland from the coastal municipality of Metaponto. Credit: Maurizio Moro5153, CC BY-SA 4.0

Craco, a shade municipality successful Italy, located successful the state of Matera astir twenty-five miles inland from the Gulf of Taranto, was erstwhile inhabited by Greeks.

The medieval colony of Craco successful Magna Graecia is emblematic of the elevation towns of the portion with mildly undulating shapes and the lands surrounding it sown with wheat.

Around 540 AD, the country was called “Montedoro” and was inhabited by Greeks who moved inland from the coastal municipality of Metaponto. Tombs person been recovered dating from the eighth century, suggesting the archetypal colony dates backmost to astatine slightest that time.

Today, earthquakes, landslides, and a deficiency of fertile farming onshore person contributed to the abandonment of Craco.

The shade municipality pictured from a drone. Credit: Maurizio Moro5153, CC BY-SA 4.0

History of the shade municipality of Craco

The inhabitants of the municipality grew from 450 successful 1277 to 2,590 successful 1561 and averaged astir 1,500 successful succeeding centuries. A plague struck successful 1656, sidesplitting hundreds and importantly reducing the population.

By 1799, determination was capable impetus to alteration the feudal system, and an autarkic municipality was established. In 1815, it was decided that the municipality was ample capable to disagreement into 2 abstracted districts.

From 1892 to 1922, implicit 1,300 Crachesi near to settee successful North America due to the fact that mediocre cultivation conditions created hopeless times, arsenic the onshore was not producing capable for the people.

During the mid-twentieth century, recurring earthquakes began to instrumentality a toll connected the town. Between 1959 and 1972, portions of the colony were severely damaged and rendered uninhabitable by a bid of landslides.

Its precocious authorities of decay is obvious. Credit: Lutz Maertens, CC BY-SA 4.0

The geological menace to the municipality was known to scientists since 1910 owed to Craco’s determination connected a elevation of Pliocene sands overhanging the clays with ravines causing progressive incisions.

Now, Craco is uninhabited. Guided tours let participants to research the ruins wearing hard hats. From afar, Craco resembles a coating with stairways and houses stacked connected apical of each other.

Up close, its precocious authorities of decay is obvious. There are towers wherever nary bells chime, and rusted balconies wherever families erstwhile hung their washing. Weeds sprout astatine the altar of San Nicola church, whose nave is unfastened to the sky.

In much caller times, Craco has recovered fame arsenic a movie set—scenes from the Italian movie adaptation of Christ Stopped astatine Eboli were changeable here. Christ did yet marque it arsenic acold arsenic Craco for the filming of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ.

As beauteous arsenic Craco is, the onshore and determination person proven unsuitable for sustaining habitation.

Related: Why Was Italy Called Great Greece (Magna Graecia)?