The Messapian walls

In Manduria, province of Taranto, in the city archeological park, we can find the remains of the ancient homonymous Messapian city. Today the testimony of its major past is detectable in a megalithic complex, a big moat and a necropolis, the biggest Messapian one ever found.

The megalithic complex is made up of walls; these rise silently, strong and well preservd, proof of the strength used to fight wars against the ancient enemy Taranto. The walls were arranged in a triple ring that circled the city, protecting it from the enemy’s strikes.

The first ring, the innermost one, was built between V and IV century b.C., it is 2.081 metres long and 842 metres in diemeter and consists of big stone blocks embedded together. Before it there is a moat, it is 4 metres wide and deep.

The middle ring was built during the IV century b.C.; it continues the ancient perimeter of the ring and it arises from its same moat, then interred.

The external ring, the most impressive, was built around the III century b.C. using the opus quadratum system, a Roman construction tecnique that consists of overlapping multiple bricks of tuff-like blocks. It is 3.382 metres long, 1.290 metres in diameter and 5 metres high and thick. For this ring a moat was dug too; it is over 6 metres wide and 5 metres deep. All the walls were surrounded by streets that connected the inside part of the walls to the outside through few entrance gates.

In 1932, close to the walls a necropolys was discovered. The tombs are datable between the VII century the II century b.C., evident from the changes of the structure and the type of burial. Among the different types of tombs, the most common are the rectangular pit ones, some of which plastered and with traces of paint.

Lastly, it is impossible not to mention the Fonte Pliniano, the city simbol, a well located inside a massive underground natural cave. This was formerly used as a place of worship and it was described by Plinio il Vecchio in his Naturalis Historia; groundwater flows from its tanks still today.

Tags: Culture, Territory