Porto Badisco,
small town near Otranto. It is said that the first Adriatic shore touched by Aeneas in his flight from Troy, landing in Italy, was precisely this. Here is the famous Grotta dei Cervi which six millennia ago, according to archaeological reconstructions carried out with extreme accuracy, welcomed the first inhabitants of the area.
The cave was discovered in February 1970 by Severino Albertini, Enzo Evangelisti, Isidoro Mattioli, Remo Mazzotta and Daniele Rizzo, all members of the Pasquale De Laurentiis speleological group from Maglie. After the discovery of the cave, Professor Paolo Graziosi, the leading Italian scholar of prehistoric art, launched a series of research campaigns, which lasted over ten years, the results of which were published in a volume, The prehistoric paintings of the cave of Porto Badisco.
Here, he defines the paintings found as «the most important and qualitatively most impressive complex of post-Paleolithic wall pictorial art known in Europe, since all its manifestations are found enclosed in the same cave». Inside the cave there are black and red paintings depicting hunting scenes, deer and signs that are difficult to interpret. The place is not open to the public because human presence could alter its microclimate.
Among the pictograms present there is one which depicts a cruciform celestial body with a sort of cockpit in the centre. Also in the same pictogram are depicted hominids who, with their weapons, destroy villages, kidnapping their inhabitants.
Mystery within mystery
Could this be the real reason why the Grotta dei Cervi is closed to the public?
To hide a remote alien presence from people?
In support of this question is the story of the speleologist Mattioli, one of the five discoverers of the Grotta dei Cervi who, in the seventies, during one of the many explorations, frightened to hear a crash of rolling stones and the sound of drums, decided to leave the place.
After a few years, Mattioli organized a new expedition. Not only did he go back to listening to the previous strange noises, but he glimpsed at a short distance from him a figure of about eighty centimeters, with human features, with two burning eyes. Needless to say, it was the last time that man went into the cave.
Would this unconfirmed "alien" presence in the Grotta dei Cervi perhaps explain the existence inside it of prehistoric engravings depicting figures in which many have seen representations of extraterrestrials?
The pictograms depict mystical figures, human figures, hands, animals. There is even a pictogram of a man with webbed feet. And then, there is a cycle depicting deer hunting, hence the name of the cave, previously called the cave of Aeneas. Many of them were made using bat guano as “ink”.
A cook … a scientist
A focus on its importance
But what is special about the Grotta dei Cervi? Some were discovered inside it in the 1970s pictographs that date back to the Neolithic, dated between 3,000 and 4,000 BC
The discovery, as often happens, was accidental and was made by five members of the Salento speleological group “P. de Lorentiis” in Maglie, near Lecce. Nini Ciccarese, scientific director of the speleological group, always accompanies the few experts inside the cave.
They are roughly counted 3 thousand pictograms depicting men, animals, but also small handprints and mystical figures that could be between 5,000 and 8,000 years old. Some depict deer hunting scenes, hence the name of the cave. Previously it was called Grotta di Enea, since the mythological place of the landing of Aeneas narrated in theAeneid of Virgil. But let's go in order.
There are three corridors for about 2km. However, one of the corridors has an independent entrance.
The pictogram of God dancing
One of the best-known pictograms of the Grotta dei Cervi is the Dancing God, which has become a bit the symbol of Salento, often depicted on the t-shirts for sale in tourist resorts. In fact, it appears to be a depiction of a shaman.
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