Representationfor knowlege preservation and improvement of the Mediterranean rupestrian habitat.

From February 2013 to February 2016, DIDA has been a partner in the project “Rupestrian art and habitat in Cappadocia (Turkey) and in Central and Southern Italy. Rock, excavated architecture, painting: between knowledge, preservation and enhancement”. Funded by PRIN (2010/11) it was coordinated by Prof. Maria Andaloro of Tuscia University. The project, based on an interdisciplinary approach combining humanistic and scientific knowledge, has used innovative technologies chosen among the most suitable contemporary communication media applied to cultural heritage. Mainly, has been examined two areas in the European-Mediterranean context, of the most representative of Medieval Rock Heritage: the Cappadocia, which is the first of Unesco World Heritage sites in Turkey, and the South-Central Italy, with the settlements of Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily and the case of the Sassi of Matera, declared World Heritage in 1993. Therefore, the habitat, a singular and natural anthropic opera union, is the core theme of the project, whose objectives are set out in the title: knowledge, conservation and enhancement. The Florence DIDA Unit Research has pursued its goals with the tools of “representation” and specific to the rocky habitat. Particularly, the Unit Research worked in Cappadocia in a not investigated area, located on the eastern side of the Göreme Valley, in the north of the Open Air Museum. The DIDA Unit Research, especially, has achieved a territorial survey of his landscape and architectonical unity, with its settlement structures in rock, that are on the ridge, and dug in natural cones, that characterise the Cappadocian landscape. Also, had been documented the italian site Santa Marina Village, near San Marco’s ravine at Massafra, Puglia, and the east front of Palagianello ravine and its medieval and XVI century part of village settlements.