Underground oil mills are meaningful rural monuments bearing witness of a past civilisation revolving around the olive tree and its fruits in the territory and culture of Puglia. They evoke the ancient Greek civilisation. Just like in the Aegean islands where they originated, their presence in Salento shoes the local inclination for olive farming and trading in olive oil used for nutritional purposes and, in the past, also for lamps. In the past underground oil mills gave the rural population the opportunity to face the winter season, marked by the scarcity of resources. The underground building allowed to take advantage of the constant temperature and protect the oil from rises and drops of the temperature.

Today, when accessing an underground oil mill, visitors feel they are interacting with a space full of shades and silence, almost similar to a religious building. When the oil mill was working the atmosphere was completely different, working time were exhausting for the operators (“trappitari”), who inspired great part of the folk poetic production in Salento. .

Underground oil mills were dug until the first half of the 1700s and continued to be used sporadically until the first half of the 20th century.