Museo Civico Messapico

The evidence relating to the Messapico period of Alezio consists mostly of outfits from the tombs, unearthed during excavations in the city and especially during the occasional systematic exploration of the necropolis of Mount d’Elia, conducted since 1981. On the occasion of these excavations, the Municipal Administration has promoted the establishment of a museum, intended to accommodate the most interesting materials from current research and meeting a need felt even by the city’s population, to avoid dispersion in museums in Taranto and Lecce. The Messapico Civic Museum (significantly the only entitled to that civilization) is placed inside the eighteenth-century palace built by the noble Gallipoli family of Tafuri. It was declared a national monument in 1981 and inaugurated in 1982, thus avoiding the loss of precious objects.