THE MUSEUM

The New Archaeological Museum of Ugento is located in the old Franciscan convent of S. Maria della Pietà, in the historical centre of Ugento. The building was erected in 1430 on the orders of Aghelberto del Balzo, Count of Ugento, and was for a long time a place of retreat and prayer for the Observant Friars Minor.
In 1866, following the Unification of Italy and the law on the suppression of religious congregations (royal decree 3036), the monastery was handed over to the State Property Office and in the same year, the Municipality of Ugento requested the concession of the premises of the former convent to be used as the new headquarters of the Royal Carabinieri Barracks. Subsequently, the rooms of the monumental complex were used as school classrooms and municipal offices.
The use of the convent changed again in 1968 when the need to preserve and display the numerous archaeological finds found in the Ugento area during decades of excavation and research became increasingly important.
The Museum is spread over two floors, with a surface area of about 1400 square metres divided between the ground floor and the first floor.
Among the most important and distinctive finds exhibited in the Museum, there is undoubtedly the copy of the famous bronze statue of Zeus found in Ugento in 1961 in via Fabio Pittore, during the extension works of a private house.
The bronze statue depicts the god in the act of throwing the (lost) thunderbolt with his right hand, on his left was an eagle of which only its claws remain. The statue rested on a stone capital decorated with a frieze of rosettes.
Another find of very great historical and artistic importance is the Tomb of the Athlete, one of the most monumental found in the Ugento area, discovered in 1970 during construction works in via Salentina. It is a semi-chambered tomb, dug into the clay bank with a double-pitched roof; inside, the walls are decorated with red and blue festoons motifs, with bandages from which groups of wavy ribbons and small animals fall.
The rich collection, which in ancient times was partly hung along the walls, documents at least three depositions, one of which can be attributed to a thirty-year-old young man of high social rank.