Matera is a very interesting city of 60,000 people. The area of what is now Matera has been settled since the Palaeolithic (10th millennium BC). This makes it  one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world. 

Matera was built above a deep ravine that divides the territory into two areas.  It was very difficult to provide water. Early dwellers spent a great deal of  energy in building cisterns and systems of water channels.

The largest cistern has been found under Piazza Vittorio Veneto. With its solid pillars carved from the rock and a vault height of more than fifteen metres, it is a veritable water cathedral, which is navigable by boat. Like other cisterns in the town, it collected rainwater that was filtered and flowed in a controlled way to the Sassi.