The Sassi di Matera (meaning “stones of Matera”) are prehistoric cave dwellings in the Italian city of Matera, Basilicata. Matera has gained international fame for its “Sassi”. The Sassi are houses dug into the tufa rock itself, which is characteristic of Basilicata and Puglia. In the 1950s, the government of Italy forcefully relocated most of the population of the Sassi to areas of the developing modern city.