Trulli of Alberobello

The trulli of Alberobello are traditional dry stone houses in the town of Alberobello in the Apulia region of southern Italy, built without mortar from local limestone and topped with conical roofs. Builders raised the walls and corbelled the stone rings up to a peak entirely without mortar, a construction method distinctive to the area, and many of the conical roofs carry whitewashed symbols or decorative pinnacles that traditionally marked the work of an individual master builder, the trullaro. The town's historic center is dense with these structures, most now used as houses, shops or tourist accommodation. UNESCO inscribed the trulli of Alberobello as a World Heritage Site in 1996, citing them as an outstanding example of a prehistoric building technique still in use.