| Roca Vecchia | ||
 | ||
| State | Italy | |
|---|---|---|
| Region | Puglia | |
| Territory | Salento | |
| Altitude | 5.5 m a.s.l. | |
| Inhabitants | 22 (2001) | |
| Name inhabitants | Rocani | |
| Prefix tel | 39 0832 | |
| POSTAL CODE | 73026 | |
| Time zone | 1 | |
| Patron | Santa Maria di Roca (first Sunday in August) | |
Position
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Roca Vecchia is a center of the Puglia.
To know
Seaside resort and ancient settlement, it is an important archaeological site as well as a place of particular naturalistic beauty.
Geographical notes
Coastal center of the municipality of Melendugno, of which it is one of the marinas, is located between San Foca and Torre dell'Orso and is 9 km from the municipal capital.
Background
The excavations carried out in Roca have highlighted an imposing system of fortifications dating back to the Bronze Age (15th-11th century BC), as well as numerous finds that by affinity recall Minoan and Aegean models. It is believed that, in a period dating back to around the 15th century BC, the site was besieged and set on fire. The subsequent walls, rebuilt in the 11th century BC, also show traces of fire. Of this mysterious place, which like the mythical Troy was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt several times, it is unknown who the founding peoples were and even if these fortifications were used to defend a city or - as seems more likely - an important place of worship. The site was however frequented throughout the Iron Age, while the traces relating to the Messapian age (IV-III century BC) are decidedly more conspicuous: a wall (which however was not completed), a funerary monument, several tombs and furnaces. The name of the Messapian city (or rather its Latinization) is thought to be Thuria Sallentina.
The site was subsequently abandoned (no traces of the Roman period have been found), while it was frequented in the early Middle Ages by anchorites, mostly from the Eastern Roman Empire, who over time formed a community, living in a series of excavated caves in limestone. At the beginning of the 14th century, Gualtieri di Brienne, count of Lecce, rebuilt Roca making it a fortified city, but in 1480 its population was put to flight by the Turkish raids. In fact, in that year the Sultan Mohammed II, after having conquered Constantinople (1453) and subjected the whole Balkan Peninsula, he sent an expedition that landed on the east coast of Salento. Roca Vecchia was sacked and used by the Turks as a base of operations to launch attacks on the city of Otranto and to other Salento centers. The city, liberated in 1481, later became a den of pirates, so much so that in 1544 Ferrante Loffredo, governor of the province of Terra d'Otranto, gave the order to raze it to the ground.
How to orient yourself
Roca Vecchia: full screen map.How to get
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What see
- Sanctuary of Maria Santissima delle Grazie (crypt of Roca Vecchia). Of unknown origins, the crypt of Roca Vecchia was built on the site of an ancient rock hypogeum or an ancient Byzantine cave. The semi-underground structure has 3 naves, each with three columns, whose capitals are of the composite-Corinthian order; all the columns are monolithic and reused from a Roman building. Below it there is a cave of karst origin, largely encumbered by rubble from the collapse of the apse where, in addition to the icon, a large statue of the Madonna in pure gold must have been. The sanctuary has a single altar entirely of Lecce stone, in which the effigy of the Madonna is set, which according to legend was found by a young shepherd from Rocano who was looking for a lost lamb. On the sides of the altar there are two busts dedicated one to Sant'Agata and one to Sant'Apollonia. In the past there was another altar dedicated to Saints Brizio (Patron of Calimera) and Antonio (Patron of Borgagne), who disappeared after the First World War. The crypt was transformed into a chapel in 1690.
- For a long time the sanctuary has been a destination for pilgrimages already witnessed in 1656. Celebrations are given to the Virgin of Mercy of Roca in the villages where the inhabitants of Roca took refuge during the invasion of the Turks: in Vernole (last Saturday in April); in Calimera (first Saturday in May); to Melendugno (second Saturday in May); to Borgagne (third Saturday in May).
- 1 Watchtower. It is said that in the 14th century Count Gualtiero di Brienne decided to build a fortified citadel in this place, attracted by the happiness of its geographical position, and called it Roche, from which Roca, to which the Tower of Maradico, another name of the Torre Roca Vecchia, so called because of the marshes that still surround it today, making it an unhealthy area. Built in 1568 by master Tommaso Garrapa, when the medieval city was already in ruins, it has a square base and a truncated pyramid shape, typical of the period of the Spanish viceroyalty. It communicates to the north with Torre San Foca and to the south with Torre dell'Orso. The tower is currently in poor conservation conditions. The only room in the tower lacks two walls and part of the roof, while the limestone material that constitutes it is heavily deteriorated.
- Caves Posia (caves of Poetry). Near the town there are two Posia caves (from the Greek, "freshwater spring"), better known as caves of Poetry; about 60 meters away from each other, they are karst caves whose roofs have collapsed. The sea water reaches each of them through a channel that can be traveled by swimming or with a small boat. The larger of the two has an approximately elliptical plan with axes of about 30 and 18 meters and is about thirty meters from the open sea. The Posia Piccola, on the other hand, has axes of about 15 and 9 meters and is separated from the open sea by about seventy meters as the crow flies. Its considerable importance in the archaeological field is linked to the discovery in 1983 of Messapian inscriptions (but also Latin and Greek) on its walls, from which it was possible to establish that the cave was in ancient times a place of worship of the god Taotor (or also Tator, Teotor , or Tootor).
- North of the archaeological area is the currently inhabited center (22 residents in 2001), also known as Roca places them, frequented by vacationers in the summer.
- Roca Nuova. Along the road that connects Torre dell'Orso to Melendugno the old uninhabited village rises, with a fortified farm currently under restoration, of Roca Nuova. This village was built around 1480, when the population of Roca Vecchia was put on the run by Turkish raids.
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