Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Magna Grecia

The museum’s centerpiece is the Riace Bronzes, a pair of life-sized Greek warrior statues recovered from the sea off Calabria in 1972, displayed alongside an extensive collection of Magna Graecia archaeology.

Planning your visit

The Riace Bronzes are two of the finest Greek sculptures to survive from antiquity, and they survive because they sank. Cast around 460 to 450 BC, they were found in 1972 by a diver off the Calabrian coast, lying in eight metres of water — full-size nude warriors in bronze, with copper lips and nipples, silver teeth and ivory and glass eyes, in a state of preservation that marble copies cannot approach.

They are displayed in a purpose-built seismically isolated room with controlled climate, standing free so they can be walked around, and the musculature and the individuality of the faces are startling at close range.

The rest of the museum covers Magna Graecia across Calabria — the Greek colonies of Locri, Kaulonia and Rhegion — with votive material, architectural fragments and grave goods that would carry a museum on their own anywhere else.

Reggio Calabria sits on the strait facing Sicily, and the waterfront promenade is famously beautiful.

Bookable options include city tours with museum entry, some combining Scilla by night or local tastings. Current availability is listed below.