Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Paestum

The National Archaeological Museum of Paestum showcases artifacts from the ancient Greek city of Paestum, including sculptures, pottery, and the famous Tomb of the Diver.

Planning your visit

Paestum was Poseidonia, a Greek colony founded around 600 BC in Campania, and it has three of the best-preserved Greek temples anywhere — better preserved than most in Greece itself, standing in open fields with their columns and entablatures largely intact.

The museum holds what the site and its cemeteries produced, and its most famous object is the Tomb of the Diver: five painted limestone slabs from around 470 BC, showing a symposium scene and a figure diving into water, the only surviving example of Greek painting of the period depicting the human figure. What it means — a metaphor for the passage to death, most think — is unresolved.

The metopes from the sanctuary at Foce del Sele, carved with mythological scenes, are the other major holding.

Paestum sits south of Salerno, and the site can be walked freely among the temples. Bookable options combine the temples and museum. Allow two hours. Current availability is listed below.