Roca (archaeological site)

[1][2] The site, which has been explored since the end of the 1980s by a team of the University of Salento, has produced some of the best-preserved monumental architecture of the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) in Southern Italy, along with the largest set of Mycenaean pottery ever recovered west of mainland Greece.

The occupation of the site continued also in the Iron Age and Classical times, when a large natural cavity known as Poesia Cave was used for cult practices involving the writing of thousands of dedications to a local deity in three languages: Greek, Messapic and Latin.

The site was re-occupied in late medieval times, when a new town was founded by Walter VI, Count of Brienne.

Grotta della Poesia (Poetry Cave) is one of the most well known natural rock formations inside the archaeological site.

[4] The name originates from a legend that tells the story of a Princess who liked to bathe in the waters of Grotta della Poesia.