Nuovo museo archeologico di Ugento
Civic archaeological museum in the former Franciscan convent of Ugento, with the Tomb of the Athlete, a copy of the Zeus of Ugento and Messapian finds.
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About the museum
The museum is housed in the former convent of Santa Maria della Pietà of the Friars Minor Observant, built in the 15th century and organised around a central cloister. After Italian unification the convent passed to the State property (Demanio) and was used as a Carabinieri barracks, then as school classrooms and municipal offices. In 1968 the Civic Museum of Archaeology and Palaeontology was founded there; after a long restoration, completed in 2009, it took the name Nuovo Museo archeologico.
On the ground floor, in the cloister, the Tomb of the Athlete is displayed; it was discovered in 1970 in Via Salentina and dates to the late 6th century BC. In the refectory stands a large model of ancient Ugento, next to a copy of the Zeus of Ugento, a masterpiece of Magna Graecia bronze work (the original, from around 530 BC, is in the Museo archeologico nazionale di Taranto).
On the first floor the Antiquarium gathers the finds from the old display, with rooms devoted to the necropolises and walls of the ancient city, the indigenous cults of Messapia, numismatics, prehistory and the Middle Ages. The building also preserves 16th- and 18th-century frescoes, including a Last Supper in the refectory and the Sala del Priore, a former library with frescoes.
Highlights
- Tomb of the Athlete in the cloister (late 6th century BC)
- Copy of the Zeus of Ugento
- Model of ancient Ugento in the refectory
- Messapian necropolises and walls
- Finds from the sanctuaries of Torre San Giovanni and Monte Papalucio at Oria
- Frescoes of the refectory and the Sala del Priore
Permanent exhibition
- Percorso archeologico dal chiostro all'Antiquarium – On the ground floor the Tomb of the Athlete, the model of ancient Ugento and the copy of the Zeus; on the first floor the Antiquarium with necropolises, walls, Messapian cults, coins, prehistory and the Middle Ages.
- Founded
- 1968
- Operated by
- Comune di Ugento
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