Paestum National Museum

The Paestum National Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Paestum), set within the archaeological park beside the Greek temples in southern Campania, gathers the finds from the ancient city of Poseidonia-Paestum and its sanctuaries. Opened in the 1950s and expanded since, the museum provides the artistic and ritual context for the standing temples a short walk away, drawing together material spanning the Greek, Lucanian and Roman phases of the site from the seventh century BC onward. Its single most celebrated object is the Tomb of the Diver (Tomba del Tuffatore), dated to about 480 BC, whose painted slabs are the only surviving example of Greek figurative wall painting from the Archaic or Classical period to come down complete; the lid shows a youth diving into water, often read as a metaphor for the passage from life to death, while the side panels depict a symposium. Equally important are the architectural sculptures and votive offerings from the Sanctuary of Hera at the mouth of the Sele, including a remarkable series of carved metopes illustrating Greek myth, displayed so visitors can trace the development of Archaic sculpture. The museum also holds Lucanian tomb paintings, vivid scenes of duels, processions and funerary games that document the indigenous culture that absorbed the Greek city; fine Greek and Italiot pottery; bronzes; and Roman-period material from the forum and houses. Displays are arranged broadly chronologically and thematically, linking the objects to their find-spots in the temples, sanctuaries and necropoleis. Conserved and run by the same heritage park authority that manages the temples and included on the combined site ticket, the museum is compact enough to see in an hour or two and is best experienced together with a walk among the temples it explains.