Archaeological park of the messapical walls and necropolis

In a vast area of 16 hectares, almost at the northeastern border of the Abate of Manduria, it extends the largest archaeological park of the messapic civilization, which inhabited the Salentine Peninsula before the Roman conquest of the III sec. BC

The archaeological area includes the remnants of the megalithic walls (because it formed from large square blocks of local squares) that cinged the messapic inhabited (built in triple circle between the centuries V-III BC), the remains of a necropolis with over 1200 grave tombs excavated in the rock and the so-called Pliniano Source, a perennial water source hidden in a cave. The artifacts found inside the necropolis are preserved at the Archeological Museum "Manduria, Land of Messapi".

The history of this ancient abate tells of contrasts and wars that the messapian civilization had to bear first against the nearby MagnoGreek city of Taranto and then against the Romans : the Spartan king Archidamo, who came to the aid of the tarantines, lost his life just under these walls in 338 B.C., but nothing succeeded in stopping the advance of Rome, which was taken over by Annibale in 212 BC