PARCO ARCHEOLOGICO DELLE MURA MESSAPICHE
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Park to discover the remains of the ancient city of Manduria.
The Archaeological Park of the Messapian Walls allows visitors to discover the remains of the ancient city of Manduria, an important Messapian centre. Here you can discover part of the ancient fortifications, a necropolis, a mythical source told by Pliny the Elder, and a precious example of a hypogeum crypt.
The Messapian walls. A triple belt of megalithic walls protected the Messapian city. These three walls, dating from the 5th-3rd centuries B.C. and surrounded by a 5-metre moat, enabled Manduria to resist the onslaught of Taranto. Beneath these walls died the king of Sparta Archidamos III, who had come to lend a hand to the Taranto allies.
The necropolis. There are 1,284 tombs dating from the period between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. The pit tombs, dug into the rock, were covered with a stone slab
Pliniano cast iron. Near the monastery of Sant'Antonio, it is the emblem of Manduria: a fresh water spring located in an underground cavity. The cavity contains a lake whose water level hardly ever varies in any season. The spring was named after Pliny the Elder, who described it in his work Natural History.
Chiesa San Pietro Mandurino. The small 13th-century church marks the site of a hypogeum crypt, probably built in what was once a Hellenistic-Roman chamber tomb. It can be reached by a staircase dug into the rock. It has fragmentary frescoes.
