Timmari is a wooded hill in the municipal area of Matera which culminates at 451 m. with Monte Timbro, in a dominant position over the Bradano valley and the La Martella plain, as well as overlooking the Rifeccia district. In addition to having a high landscape value together with the nearby lake of San Giuliano, the town plays an important role from an archaeological and historical point of view. Today it looks like a scattered rural village. Until the 1980s, many Matera people built their second home there, but fashion has passed, many are in a state of neglect.
The hill is very extensive and is largely wooded even if the original Mediterranean forest has been largely eliminated and nowadays it is mainly pine and cypress reforestation. Reforestation is now over 60 years old and has allowed indigenous Mediterranean essences such as holm oak and downy oak to resume ancient spaces. However, there are many fields that alternate with spontaneous vegetation
The hill of Timmari is one of the sites with the most continuous human settlements in this part of Italy. As it has been ascertained by excavations and recent research, human presence on the hill already began in the Neolithic Age, developed in the Bronze Age and took on the appearance of a urban agglomerate in the first phase of the Iron Age. A vast necropolis presents the funeral rite of cremation with proto-Villanovan urns.
The necropolis, or more specifically urn fields, were discovered and studied by Domenico Ridola and Quintino Quagliati in the early 1900s in the Lama San Francesco locality also known as Vigna Coretti, a few km from the plains of San Salvatore and Camposanto, where the center urban developed. Several excavations have been carried out in this location and in addition to the funeral urns, no architectural remains were found then the reconstruction of the hypothetical sanctuary is still debated.
Anyway the presence of canalizations suggests that there was a cult of water associated with some form of sanctuary. The first contact with the Greek Metapontine world, facilitated by the Bradano valley, is perceived towards the end of the VII century B.C. while in the second half of the sixth century B.C. Greek ceramics is present everywhere and in abundance with the so-called ionic cups in the necropolises extending on the southern side of the hill. Around the medieval church of S. Salvatore (at the time probable pagan temple), the town takes on the character of a planned center with vertically crossed axes; urban planning is attributed to the fifth century B.C.
The maximum development is reached instead during the IV-III century B.C. when the votive stipe begins to present a wealth never found in the hinterland of the Hellenistic hills.
The votive stipe, in addition to a rich numismatic documentation on commercial relations with Taranto, Metaponto, Heraclea, Velia and Terina, presents the most complete documentation of agricultural tools of the time offered as ex-votos to the sanctuary of a still unknown divinity. The most important documentation found in the stipe is made up of bronzes - paterae, belts with configured hooks and ivy leaf appliques - and thousands of statuettes partially recalling Tarantine types, partly female busts from certainly local matrices with a strong popular character.
When the nearby Greek coast reached its peak in the Hellenistic tarantino-type coroplasty, Timmari's figuli created models that are not easily compared even with the centers of the interior. There was a barbarization without any justification if we don’t consider the presence of Lucanian armies engaged to conquer the cities of Metaponto and Heraclea. These busts represent a unicum in the local production of the hinterland of the Greek colonies.
With the Hannibal wars (200 BC) life on the hill began to die out, although it continued until the late Roman period when, around the ancient sanctuary, an early medieval village dominated by the church of S. Salvatore arose, most likely, on the place of the ancient main temple of the center.
