HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS

The Archaeological Museum of Ugento was inaugurated in October 1968 under the name of Civic Museum of Archaeology and Palaeontology, welcoming materials found after the Second World War, when the gradual process of urban expansion of the city had led to the occasional discovery of numerous ancient materials, mostly from funerary contexts. The funerary objects found in the 1950s and 1960s were dismembered and the materials were grouped by type and displayed in the showcases that now make up the Antiquarium on the first floor of the Museum; it is therefore very difficult to trace these objects back to the original contexts of discovery, with some exceptions, such as the epichysis and the red-figure plate, of Apulian production (late 4th century BC), found in 1956 in a sarcophagus discovered at the crossroads between via Mare and via Bolzano. In addition to the ceramics (and a few metal objects) recovered from tombs, some Messapian and Latin epigraphs found in Ugento in the 1960s have also entered the Museum's collections: a block with a fragmentary Latin inscription perhaps mentioning a quinq(uennalis), dated between the Augustan and Julio-Claudian eras, found near the castle in 1961; a block of Doric frieze-architrave with a fragmentary Messapian inscription perhaps of a public nature dated between the second half of the 3rd century BC and the end of the 2nd century BC, brought to light in via Monsignor De Razza in 1967; a large block found in 1968 in the Fondo Chiesaredda, just north of via Pastane, with a fragmentary Messapian inscription of a funerary nature dated to the 3rd century BC. The Museum also holds a fragmentary limestone statue of the 4th-3rd century BC, to be identified with the "statue in pietra leccese" found in 1967 in a house in Ugento and of uncertain provenance, and part of a face in white marble face of the 1st century BC found in 1968 in a tomb in the Santa Croce area, on the southern outskirts of the town, as well as some Neolithic and Eneolithic axes discovered in the Fabiani area, north-east of the historical centre.
Just two years after the inauguration, the painted blocks of the monumental "Tomb of the Athlete", discovered on 13 July 1970 during construction works in the village along via Salentina, were transferred to the Museum (fig. 1); the semi-chamber was rebuilt inside the museum building, while the numerous materials in the kit, dating from between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, they were instead transferred to the Taranto deposits of the Archaeological Superintendency. In the same year, a male head in the round in limestone was also found, again in the village along via Salentina, perhaps also belonging to a funerary context and dated to the 4th-3rd century BC
After its foundation, the Museum received other materials that had been found in Ugento during occasional excavations. Among these we highlight the funerary objects found in via Aghelberto del Balzo in 1969, dating back to the second quarter of the 5th century BC and including an Attic krater with red figures, as well as a strainer and an oinochoe, both in bronze; a Messapian inscription of the 3rd century BC containing a text of a public nature, found in an unspecified location at the beginning of the 1970s  and engraved on a fragment of a frame; ceramic fragments from a kiln drain dating back to the 13th-14th century AD, found in via Madonna della Luce in 1974; the materials coming from the excavation carried out in 1975-1976 at the Torre San Giovanni lighthouse; the grave goods dating from the second half of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC of the two slab-box tombs discovered in 1979 at the intersection of via Bolzano and via Bologna; the grave goods from Tomb 2, dating from the archaic period, and from Tombs 3, 5, 7, 16, 17, 24, dating from the 4th-2nd century BC, excavated in 1986-1987 in the necropolis of S. Antonio, brought to light following an excavation connected to agricultural works; the treasure of 19 silver denarii, contained in a small terracotta vase and dated between the second decade of the 2nd century and 90 BC, found in via Piave in 1984; the small trozzella, dating back to the first half of the 5th century BC, belonging to the burial goods of a small sarcophagus tomb discovered along via Indipendenza in 1989; the grave goods can be dated between the second half of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC recovered in the same year from a slab tomb brought to light in via Peri.
A very important stage in the transformations undergone by the museum layout is the Klahoi Zis exhibition. The cult of Zeus in Ugento, curated by Francesco D'Andria and Antonietta Dell'Aglio, was inaugurated in 2002 and dedicated to the settlement of the archaic period and the bronze statue of Zeus founded in via Fabio Pittore in 1961, which was exhibited for the first time, albeit temporarily, in Ugento. The exhibition proposed a reconstruction of the historical and cultural context to which the statue belonged, presenting a hypothesis of restitution of the place of worship in which it was originally placed, illustrated by large-format panels produced by InkLink of Florence, under the scientific direction of F. D'Andria, still present in the current museum layout (fig. 2). The statue of Zeus, however, was replaced by a 1:1 scale copy, also in bronze, after its return to the Archaeological Museum of Taranto. The following year saw the inauguration of the permanent exhibition Ozan. Stories of Coin, curated by Aldo Siciliano, which today constitutes the numismatic section of the Museum.
Another important moment in the history of the Museum was the exhibition inaugurated in July 2009 and again curated by F. D'Andria, from which the current one partly derives; this reorganisation of the itinerary route follows the restoration works of the entire former Convent of the Observant Friars Minor carried out in 2004-2009. The central element of the ground floor of the New Archaeological Museum of Ugento, which from now on takes this name, will be the "Tomb of the Athlete", whose slabs will be reassembled inside the cloister on the ground floor, where various display cases will contain most of the artefacts returned to Ugento from Taranto. In the new exhibition, which also includes a model of Ugento in the 4th-3rd century BC, created with the diorama technique by Fabrizio Ghio starting from a first version of the archaeological map of Ugento, the collections are also enriched with new funerary objects, coming from tombs discovered between 2004 and 2005: the materials from Tomb 4, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the necropolis found in via Peri, immediately north-west of the crossroad with via Indipendenza, including various slab tombs with multiple burials (including of infants on tiles) between the -3rd century BC and the 2nd-1st century BC; pottery and bronze objects, dated between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC, belonging to the so-called “Tomba del Guerriero” found in via Rovigo; material from the 4th-3rd century BC from two tombs, one with a pit and the other with a slab box, found at the crossroad of via Alighieri and via Cilea and in via N. Armida; the three incineration burials (two in olla and one in lithic cist) from the late Republican era found in via Urso, which have been moved to one of the rooms on the first floor of the Museum. In addition to these funerary objects, there is also a limestone altar with a frieze of smooth metopes and triglyphs, dating back to the end of the 4th-3rd century AD, found in 2003 in a dump of materials located in a plot of land immediately to the west of the crossroad between via Barco and via Urso, and some materials found in via Messapica between 2004 and 2005, during the restoration of the former Cinema Odeon: a Doric limestone capital, dated between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, and a glazed jug decorated with a bird (perhaps an eagle) with its wings outstretched, dated to the 14th century AD.
The Museum’s exhibition situation was then updated in 2013-2015 with further interventions aimed at reorganising the itinerary and a renewing the spaces dedicated to the bronze of Zeus and the "Tomb of the Athlete", curated by Laura Masiello and Gianluca Andreassi; in particular, the tomb,  always placed in the centre of the cloister, is accompanied on two sides by as many continuous display panels in kor-ten steel, which integrate some single-sided display cases of various sizes, containing the objects of the tombs, and the illustrative guide panels for reading and understanding them. The Museum's collections also included some Eneolithic ceramics from the Artanisi area, about 3 km south-west of Ugento, where, between 2008 and 2009, three burial mounds were discovered, including large lithic cists with multiple depositions which can dated to the latest phase of the Early Bronze Age and the early phase of the Middle Bronze Age; these monumental tombs are also documented with a diorama created again by Fabrizio Ghio on the basis of 3D reconstructions developed by Ivan Ferrari. This layout of the Museum is the one that appears in the catalogue published in 2015 by Adele Barbieri.
When the museum reopened in January 2023, after a long period of closure due to the pandemic, the exhibition was enriched with other materials found in Ugento between the 1960s and 1990s, which were transferred to the Museum from the deposits of the Archaeological Superintendence of Taranto: the grave goods, dating from the last decades of the 4th and the first half of the 3rd century BC, from a slab tomb discovered in 1965 in via Peri; the grave goods dating from the end of the 5th-first half of the 4th century BC from a tomb found in 1968 between piazza R. Moro and the entrance to via Firenze; the black painted kantharos, dating back to the late 4th and early 3rd century BC, found in a slab tomb discovered in 1970 near the "Tomb of the Athlete"; the grave goods of the archaic period (including a Messapian crater with mushroom handles and an imported Ionic cup)  from a tomb discovered in 1979 in the Armino area, just south of the crossroad between via Casarano and via D'Azeglio; the material relating to the three incineration burials of the 2nd-1st century BC found in 1984 in a funerary enclosure discovered in via Giannuzzi; the 4th-2nd century BC grave goods recovered from two slab-box tombs discovered in 1985 in a plot along via Gemini, near the crossroad with via Rovigo; the 4th-2nd century BC grave goods from Tombs 11, 15 and 23 of the necropolis discovered in 1986-1987 in S. Antonio area; materials from the 4th-3rd century BC recovered in 1992 from a pit tomb, dug into the rocky bank, found along the eastern edge of the S.P. for Casarano, in the same area of S. Antonio. To these must be added the 4th century BC-1st century AD material from Tombs 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 22, 23 and 29 of the necropolis excavated in 2014-2016 immediately north-west of Torre San Giovanni.
Finally, in 2024, thanks to a project for the "Removal of physical, cognitive and sensory barriers of the Civic Museum of Archaeology and Palaeontology of Ugento", financed under the PNRR M1.C3 - Measure 1 - Investment 1.2 (Southern Macroarea), the exhibition was further integrated with various multimedia installations, aimed at promoting the use of the museum’s contents also by disabled visitors, relating to the "Tomb of the Athlete" and the objects relevant to its two phases of use, the so-called “Walled chapels” present on one of the sides of the cloister, a model that reconstructs the town of Ugento in the 4th-3rd century BC and the Crypt of the Crucifix. In particular, this last underground place of worship, located about 1 km north of the historical centre of Ugento and dating back to the Middle Age, can be admired in room 3 on the ground floor through an installation that allows for an immersive virtual visit.