Underground oil mills

Widespread throughout Salento, the underground oil mills bear witness to the flourishing economy of a distant past. This testimony is even stronger in Morciano di Leuca: nowadays there are eighteen left, a significant number considering that the entire community once numbered only 131 households. Very interesting is their age: some of them date from the 9th century. The underground oil mills of Morciano are made unique particularly by the fact that they were built on the ruins of the containers of another flourishing economy: the granaries.

The Iapyges, Messapians, Romans are the populations that have inhabited this territory. In the 11th century, the Byzantine influence brought about a major economic transformation in Salento, switching from the economy of wheat to that of olive and thus of oil. The signs of such a transformation are visible still today: landscapes characterized by silver swaths and studded with massive twisted trunks of thousand-year old olive trees.

The caves housing the oil mills were created by simply tearing down the granaries which take up most of the old town underground. Despite that most of the granaries were destroyed, visitors can admire the upper horizontal sections of the oil mills which still preserve the rolling stones, thus getting a sense of the economic splendor of Morciano in times of yore.