Oil, stone and labour: a small museum in an underground oil mill – where the installation itself is the main exhibit.
What there is to see
The MOOM shows, in a hypogeum, how olive oil was made in this region. Millstones, presses and settling basins are built into the rock, along with the channels through which the oil ran from one basin to the next. Much of it was not brought in but worked out of the stone – as everywhere in this city.
Why underground
The underground setting was not a lack of space but technique. Oil clouds and congeals in the cold; in the rock the temperature stays even all year. At the same time the work was dusty and loud – and the animals that turned the millstone walked in a circle, which needed a high, clear room.
Context
Oil was economically central to the region – not only as food but as lamp fuel. If you want to know what people here lived on, you get a more concrete answer here than in any overview text.
Who it is for
A good stop if you are walking through the Sassi anyway: small, specific, seen in half an hour – and pleasantly cool.
Read on
- Matera Sotterranea – more rooms beneath the city
- The cisterns of the Sassi – the other use of the underground
- Museums in Matera – all the houses compared
