Considerazioni su un tessellato poco noto da Calle (Tricarico, MT) nel quadro della produzione musiva della Lucania tardoantica

In the early seventies of the last century, a large Roman building interpreted as a villa was partially unearthed by the Archaeological Superintendence of Basilicata nearby the church of Santa Maria in Calle, about 6,5 km north of Tricarico (Matera). Among the various structures discovered, connected to different employment periods between the late republican age and the late antiquity, archaeologists recognized a furnace (in which, during the 5th-6th centuries AD, the so-called “Calle” pottery was produced), private baths and a room paved with a polychrome mosaic floor. This mosaic, now kept in the Archaeological Museum of Matera, is characterized by a centralized geometric pattern with figurative and phytomorphic fillings. Known in archaeological bibliography only through brief descriptions without graphic or photographic documentation, the pavement has generally been dated back to the mid-imperial age (2nd-3rd century AD). Even without accurate data about the context, however, analysis of technical and decorative aspects and comparisons with other better-known evidences seem to rather lay in favor of a later chronology (4th-5th century AD), identifying the mosaic of Calle as a paradigmatic document for the production of the hardworking workshops of musivarii operating in Lucania during the late antique period.