Where did the peasants take the construction materials for the trullo?

Often the construction of a new trullo was also the occasion to settle in a new field for starting a new familiar life. The necessary limestone material to build their new homes was originally spread all over the fields so the gathering of all the material was also a preparatory work for making the field suitable for farming. Peasants adopted these criteria also for the construction of the numerous dry-stone walls highlighting the countryside of Apulia. Actually also the agavi and capers of Trullo della Luna are fenced in three round dry-stone containers which a zealous worker decided to build rather than truck all the material away! The vertical structures of the Trullo della Luna, - but also of all the trulli of the area- are normally surrounded by a thick basement, which height is about 1.40 -1.50 metres. Someone nowadays calls it “casile”. Often these basements were reachable by two stairs located at both sides of the main entrance and their tops where adequately plastered to convey the rainwater into a subterranean tank or just out of the basement perimeter. The external structure was made with roughly shaped stones. In the hollow between this external wall and the internal structural walls of the trullo peasants were used to throw the smallest stones collected in the fields. The image shows a portion of the collapsed basement of Trullo della Luna in a shot taken before the restoration where the internal rough material is clearly observable.