Roccadaspide (IPA: [rɔkkaˈdaspide], 'A Ròcca in local dialect) is an Italian town of 6,865 inhabitants in the province of Salerno in Campania.
The town is known for its peculiar historic center and for the production of the Roccadaspide chestnut, a particular variety of chestnut that has been recognized with the PGI mark. It is also the main center of the Calore valley.
The first settlements in the area are traced back to the Greek and Etruscan civilizations.
In particular, in the Tempalta ar read more
Roccadaspide (IPA: [rɔkkaˈdaspide], 'A Ròcca in local dialect) is an Italian town of 6,865 inhabitants in the province of Salerno in Campania.
The town is known for its peculiar historic center and for the production of the Roccadaspide chestnut, a particular variety of chestnut that has been recognized with the PGI mark. It is also the main center of the Calore valley.
The first settlements in the area are traced back to the Greek and Etruscan civilizations.
In particular, in the Tempalta area, a place characterized by low hills close to the nearby Sele plain, traces of residential settlements and a necropolis have been brought to light, the materials of which are dated from the second half of the 7th century BC to the entire 4th century BC. These elements document the presence of natives in the territory, probably of Etruscan origin, settled in the area before the foundation of the nearby Greek city of Paestum (whose ruins are now included in the territory of the municipality of Capaccio) which instead occurred later between the end of the 7th and the first decades of the 6th century BC.
In the Fonte area instead, near the source of the Cosa river (a small stream that flows into the Calore Lucano river), the remains of a sanctuary were found, dated instead around the first decades of the 6th century BC, which lead to believe that there was a place of extra-urban worship, dedicated to a water deity and which had a very long life over time. It is very likely that the place of worship was built by the inhabitants of Greek origin of nearby Paestum as the elements found are very similar to those found in the nearby Heraion at the mouth of the Sele. It is believed that the Greek colonists, who had by then settled in the area, had placed the aforementioned sanctuary at one of the borders of their territory in order to establish, with the most ancient inhabitants of the place, relationships of contact and exchange under the banner of the sacred.
A hypothesis has also been put forward according to which it is believed that, starting from the 3rd century AD - the period during which Christianity was established in nearby Paestum - Roccadaspide was a Greek hamlet in which places of Christian worship had been built. It is more likely, however, that the first organized urban nucleus arose only starting from the 7th century AD, when the nearby city of Paestum was gradually abandoned due to the marshland of the area and the subsequent incursions along the coast by the Saracens and Normans, which led the inhabitants of Paestum to seek refuge in the surrounding hills. read less
