[2] The Sassi are houses dug into the calcarenitic rock itself, which is characteristic of Basilicata and Apulia, locally called "tufo", though it is neither volcanic tuff, nor tufa limestone.

Beset by extreme poverty and riddled with malaria, the unhealthy living conditions were considered inhuman and an affront to the modern new Italian Republic of Alcide De Gasperi.

[7] The Sassi are visually reminiscent of ancient sites in and around Jerusalem, and for this reason they have been used in many Christian-themed films, including The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964), The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004), The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, 2006) and Ben-Hur (Timur Bekmambetov, 2016).

They also appeared in Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman (2017), serving as a location for the Amazons' city Themyscira,[9] and Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time to Die (2021), where a scene with James Bond's Aston Martin racing through was shot.

[10] in 2016 the band Corde Oblique released a song, "I sassi di Matera", on the album "I Maestri del Colore".