On the southern summit of Monte Croccia, under the turkey-oak wood that now covers almost everything, run two rings of wall built centuries apart. The outer one, of squared sandstone blocks packed with rubble and earth, measures 1340 metres and belongs to a span between the 8th and the 6th century BC; the inner one, raised in the 4th century BC with Greek building techniques, measures 679 and encloses three hectares of acropolis. Between them stood an Oscan-Samnite fortified settlement, placed where a commanding position and abundant water came together, on ground Accettura now shares with Oliveto Lucano and, along one edge, with Calciano. Finds stop in the 3rd century BC: from then on, under Roman pressure, the hill stayed empty.
What to see
The outer wall can be followed mainly along its south-western stretch; vegetation has swallowed the rest. The inner wall is the strong part: 200 metres of its perimeter are made of huge rocks jutting over the edge of the drop, and five entrances open in it, four posterns set in opposing pairs on the north and south sides and the monumental courtyard gate, reached up a gentle slope, which still keeps its almost square chamber.
Near that gate, on the visible face of several blocks, quarry marks cut in Greek letters survive. Fifty metres lower down, at the Acqua Fra Benedetto spring, Vittorio di Cicco identified a sanctuary in use in the 4th century BC and serving burials as well; about a kilometre away, at Tempa dei Casaleni, the skeleton of a substantial building came to light whose purpose is still unknown. From the mountain's necropolis, no longer possible to locate, came the first grave goods ever dug here: a man's, with a proto-Italiote krater.
Visiting
The site lies inside the Gallipoli Cognato Piccole Dolomiti Lucane regional park and is covered on foot: a marked path follows the perimeter of the fortification and passes several lookout points, from which you can pick out Civita and Serra del Cedro near Tricarico, the town of Accettura and Albano di Lucania. Excavations have been few and far between — Michele Lacava in 1885, Vittorio di Cicco between 1905 and 1913, Attilio Tramonti from 1982, the archaeological superintendency at the end of the twentieth century, when 60 metres of the outer circuit were restored, and a survey of both circuits in 2011 — which is why the settlement still has no precise date. Much of what is left has to be looked for at ground level.
Our editors' tip
Stand in the main gateway and look east: 200 metres away is the megalithic complex of Petre de la Mola, and at the equinoxes the sun rises exactly behind it. That alignment is what led scholars to think those stones were already sacred before the walls existed.