Local Handcraft

Since of her ancient origins, the presence of limestone and clay in the soil of Canosa has helped to the development of the local digging and converting industry, becoming, together with agriculture, a fly-wheel of the economical and commercial development of the town. Between the VIII and the VI century BC, the export of made-in-Canosa ceramics was well known both all over the Adriatic Sea (Piceno, Dalmatia, Istria, Slovenia) and all over the Tyrrhenian Sea, especially in the Etruscan Campania. Clay and tufa in particular have always been used as building and plastic-art materials since the ancient times until the last few years. To-day’s local handcraft still proposes, besides new ideas and products, several types of the ancient ceramics manufacture (i.e. olla, askos, amphora, etc.). The tufa, that is still quarried from the local quarries, is exported as both building and lining material. Besides, craftsmen and artists still use that material for sculptures and decorations.