Mattinata

The region was first settled by the Illyrian tribe of the Daunians, who came from the Balkans and the eastern Adriatic coast. Monte Saraceno, overlooking the bay, holds a necropolis of around 500 rock-cut Daunian tombs dating from the 8th–7th centuries BC, many marked with carved stone slabs (stele daune) — one of the most important surviving testimonies of Daunian civilisation, a culture that faded under Roman rule. The Greeks knew the settlement as Apeneste ("place facing the East"), later Latinised as Matinum; the Roman historian Pliny the Elder records it in his Natural History under the name Metinates. The original coastal settlement was likely destroyed by a tidal wave or Saracen raids and later rebuilt further inland. With the construction of the coastal road and, later, the expressway tunnels connecting it to Manfredonia and Foggia, modern Mattinata grew into a centre of olive oil production and, increasingly, tourism tied to the Gargano coast.