Residenze aristocratiche in Puglia e Basilicata tra VII e IV secolo a.C. Influenze dall'Etruria e dalla Magna Grecia

In the last decades, studies on Magna Graecia and the Italic world have focused their attention on housing structures and settlement patterns, thanks also to the intensification of systematic investigations and archaeological discoveries made in Puglia and Basilicata. And it is precisely in the period under consideration, characterized by an intense cultural ferment and a lively socio-economic dynamism, that a process of diversification takes place, both in the development of hegemonic settlements and of the domestic structures employed, in the planimetric organization, in the functions and in the building techniques used. This is due both to external influences (see the birth of the neighboring Greek colonies) and to internal changes in the indigenous societies with the emergence of some aristocratic groups that hold the political and socio-economic control of their communities. In this context of deep changes, in addition to the appearance of the so-called "princely tombs", complex residential buildings, real palatial structures belonging to emerging groups, are also affirmed. These latter choose as their residences large-sized buildings with a multi-purpose value, which are also distinguished by their topographical location, internal layout and associated materials, such as those of Monte Sannace, Gravina, Braida di Vaglio or Torre di Satriano, reminiscent of the southern Etruria regiae. They are an expression of the role assumed by these elites within their communities, solemnized by the adoption of some details for the construction acquired from the outside, which unite all the religious and collective functions of the community together with those housing.