On the Maddalena hill, on the edge of Venosa, a series of corridors cut into the tufa holds the burials of a Jewish community that lived here between late antiquity and the early middle ages. The inscriptions allow their use to be dated between the third and the seventh century, and one carries a precise date: the year 521.
What to see
Along the tunnels open the burial niches, with the symbols of Jewish tradition cut or painted beside the names. In all some seventy inscriptions have come to light, and what makes them extraordinary is the language: they are written in Latin, in Greek and in Hebrew, sometimes more than one in the same inscription.
It is the portrait of a community that lived in three languages at once: that of the empire, that of Mediterranean culture and that of the liturgy. Scholars have read in that passage from one language to another the slow change of a group of people over four centuries. The catacombs were discovered in 1853 but systematically studied only from 1974.
Visiting
The site is on the edge of Venosa, on the hill behind the centre; entry is only on a guided visit by booking, in small groups, with limited hours that must be checked before setting out. An hour.
Our editors' tip
Look at which letters are in front of you, inscription by inscription: where there is Greek, where Latin, where the Hebrew formulas appear. It is not a scholarly detail: it is the way a community changed its skin over time while remaining itself, and it is written on the walls of a cemetery in a small town in Basilicata.