Coming back to Mottola.. Travel in Puglia, Italy

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Already visited during the festival of the guitar near Schiavonia, Riecco Mottola, a town a few miles from Taranto, stop before reaching the oasis of Mount St. Elias. With its magnificent geographical location (the hill rises 387 meters above sea level), from which you can sweep with his eyes from the Gulf of Taranto to the green of the mountains of Sila is known as the "Spy of the Ionian Sea" and also " balcony of southern Puglia. It has a circular shape. Develops steps toward the center of the country.
About the interpretation of the word, some scholars believe that the current town of Mottola comes from "deep" or "rock mass".

Mottola saw its territory and the urban area affected by human presence since prehistoric times as attested by the numerous archaeological remains found, which confirmed her as one of the first clusters emerged in the region. The human presence on the hill during the Iron Age (first millennium BC) is shown in a valuable collection of bronzes (now preserved at the Museo Nazionale di Taranto) recovered in 1899 during the excavation of the foundations of the Palazzo D'Onghia (now between Via Mazzini and Via D'Acquisto, a place once called the "Garden of the Bishop") and studied in 1903 by the curd. Settlement Apulo peuceta is coming to light in the S. Basil, following the excavations of the Archaeological Superintendence of Taranto.
It 'still too early to formulate comprehensive theories, but the discovery further confirms the position of border territory Mottolese place between the chora Tarantino and indigenous peoples. The settlement classic Mottola is attested by the discovery (1899) consisting of square blocks which are the probable remains (about 40 meters in length) of the ancient walls of the Hellenistic period, dating back probably to the fourth century BC and returned to public use in 1995.
The discovery of the walls would be a sort of evidence of a defensive network within the chora of Taranto in the period increased friction between the colony and the people of Taranto laconic and peuce messapiche. For the Middle Ages, the first written source belongs to the early decades of the eleventh century and concerns the foundation of the castellum of Mottola by Basil Boioannes Catapano, depending on the strategic-military antisaracena. During Norman rule is already a bishopric, and will be until 1818, when it was abolished due to the new concordat between Pius VI and Ferdinand I of Bourbon and aggregate Castellaneta. Surely this is an interesting town was almost deserted at sin of our visit (around 13/14)