Just sixty years had passed since the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, when his friars built one of their first monasteries in the village of the Sele valley which was then called Evoli, present-day Eboli.
The monastic complex of 1286 experienced various vicissitudes in the following centuries, including various renovations and stylistic transformations, but retained its original function until the suppression of the religious orders on 7 August 1806, in the midst of the Napoleonic era. A few years later, in fact, it was converted into the Town Hall and school building. Then came the destruction of the war in 1943, followed by a long period of abandonment which was only overcome in 1993, when a complete restoration recovered all its historical-architectural value. Since 25 March 2000, the western wing has housed the ManES, the National Archaeological Museum dedicated to the ancient peoples settled in the Middle Sele Valley.
Immediately after entering the beautiful thirteenth-century cloister, in the atrium of the museum you come across the most famous find, the Eburina Stele from the 2nd century AD, or the stone pedestal of the missing statue of the consul Titus Flavius Silvanus. The stele was incorporated for centuries into the bell tower of the church of Santa Maria ad Intra, where its long inscription remained almost ignored, and began to be the subject of studies and interpretations only in 1823. The interpretation of the great Theodor Mommsen was decisive. It shows that the Roman Eburum in 183 AD. it was a Roman municipium.
The museum itinerary sheds light on the history of the Eboli area and the Sele valley since Prehistory. The first evidence of human presence in the area dates back to the period between the Upper and Lower Neolithic, therefore between 3500 and 2500 years ago, and consists of ceramic finds from the site of San Cataldo and attributable to the facies of Serra d'Alto and that of Diana-Bellavista. The tombs of the necropolis of the Madonna della Catena belong to the Eneolithic in the 3rd millennium, evidence of the so-called "Gaudo culture", from the site of the same name near Paestum, where the oldest necropolis characterized by that specific burial method is located. In the Bronze Agebetween the 14th and 12th BC. the presences in the Padula and Turmine localities belong, linked to the seasonal transhumance of livestock, while finds from the oldest settlement on the Montedoro hill, behind the current Eboli, date back to the closest phase between the 12th and 11th centuries. Among those objects, there are ceramic fragments of Mycenaean origin, which tell of contacts and exchanges with the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean.
From the first half of the 8th BC, in the Iron Age, are the characteristic "pit tombs" of the necropolis of San Cataldo, via Matteo Ripa and Oliveto Citra with rich grave goods, some of which are exhibited in the museum: the male tombs have returned weapons, while the women returned valuable jewels, as well as ceramic materials of various origins.
The layout of the rooms on the first floor begins in chronological sequence from the end of the 7th century BC, i.e. the archaic age of the Eboli site, with finds from the funerary objects of the necropolises. Particularly significant is the diffusion of bucchero vases of Etruscan-Campanian workmanship, prevalent compared to objects of Greek production, although the inscriptions with the names of the deceased are all in Etruscan. Dated to the end of the 5th BC, the burials have yielded painted vases, including an Attic cup of considerable artistic value. During the 4th and 3rd BC the burial methods in the Eboli necropolis adapt to the uses of the Samnites and Lucanians, now present throughout the area: complete armor is found in the male burials, jewels and vases in the female ones. To the finds from the Eboli area, there are important testimonies from Oliveto Citra, referable to the pit tomb culture of the same name.
