| The "Salvatore Zecca" Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology was opened in 1968 for the occasion of the 1st Conference of the Association of Messapian, Peucet and Daun Museums (Associazione dei Musei Messapici, Peuceti e Dauni), held in Ugento. Most of the ex Franciscan convent is taken up by the museum. The Museum holds around 800 finds which cover a historical period from 6th century B.C up to medieval times. You can see commercial amphora, large bowls, terracotta votive lamps and pieces of architecture, Greek and Roman coins, funerary urns and children’s tombs from the end of the 2nd century B.C. On the ground floor, in the cloister, there are architraves from Roman and Messapian buildings, tombstones and, in a specially designated room, the famous “athlete’s tomb” dating from the 5th century B.C. On the first floor the exhibition is arranged in chronological order, into Prehistoric and Messapian, Roman and Medieval. A topographical (mapping) section follows, here you can look at the precise location of the main settlements discovered in this area. Some parts of the exhibition focus on particular topics such as the finding of the Focone Foundry dating to the Upper Palaeolithic age (between 12,000 and 7,000 B.C.) and the coins from the Ugento mint. There is also a copy of the famous Bronze statue of Zeus in the museum, found by chance in Ugento in 1961. The Town Library on the ground floor lends daily papers and periodicals out, these can be read in the adjoining garden, called “dei Monaci” or the Monks’ garden. |