A Byzantine kastron was discovered in Lecce between Piazza Sant'Oronzo and Via Alvino.

LECCE - Urban archaeological excavations underway since last June in Lecce's historic center have uncovered new evidence of the city's early medieval history. Archaeologists hypothesize that this discovery, along with other finds unearthed in the last century, are part of a complex defensive structure built using the nearby amphitheater, considered by experts to be the most impressive building in Roman Lecce. During the early Middle Ages, the amphitheater would have served as a Byzantine kastron, a fortress and the city's political center.

The excavation focused on an area between Piazza Sant'Oronzo and Via Alvino, where Roman-era artifacts had already emerged last year, including part of the cavea, the ring wall, the radial partitions, and three perimeter pillars. Continuing the excavations, massive wall structures emerged adjacent to the amphitheater, outside the building's perimeter, immediately to its north. These structures revealed themselves to be part of an imposing fortification, constructed in two distinct phases, which exploited and apparently incorporated the pre-existing Roman theater. The excavation uncovered a massive wall, 3.7 meters wide and over two meters high in some places, constructed using the "sack" technique, i.e., a fill consisting of earth and stone fragments contained between two facings made from reused large blocks from the dismantling of the nearby amphitheater and other existing monuments in the area.

The defensive system built between the 5th and 6th centuries AD was a particularly turbulent historical period from a political and military point of view, when the amphitheatre had by now lost its original function due to the progressive spread of Christianity and as a consequence of Honorius' decree of 404 which prohibited gladiatorial games in the arenas.