Almost everyone comes to Paestum for the three temples and skips the museum, which is two hundred metres away and contains the rarest thing of all: a young man painted in the act of diving. The slab that covered the Tomb of the Diver, found in 1968 just outside the city, is the only known example of Greek funerary painting with figures from that period, around four hundred and eighty before Christ. The sides of the tomb show a banquet, with the guests reclining, drinking and playing music.
What to see
Nobody knows for certain what that dive means: the passage from life to death, most say, but the explanation does not settle the matter and the figure stays there, suspended, arms open above the water. It is in a room of its own, at eye level, and you can look at it as closely and as long as you like.
The museum is not only that, though. There is the series of archaic sandstone metopes that decorated the treasury of the sanctuary of Hera at the mouth of the Sele, with the deeds of Heracles and the figures of dancing girls, carved with a hardness that looks modern; there are hundreds of votive statuettes, weapons and grave goods; and there is the great collection of painted Lucanian tombs of the fourth century, with the warrior setting out, the horseman returning victorious and the women tearing their hair. Then the Roman section, when the Greek city became a Latin colony and changed its name.
Visiting
The museum is inside the archaeological area, opposite the entrance to the park; the ticket is normally combined with the excavations and valid for several days. Open daily, closed on a few holidays. An hour, an hour and a half. In summer it is also the coolest place in Paestum.
Our editors' tip
Do the museum before the temples, not after: the metopes, the statuettes and the grave goods tell you who lived here, and when you then walk among the columns you are no longer looking at three empty buildings. And stay a while in front of the Diver: it is a painting from two thousand five hundred years ago that looks made yesterday, and it is the only thing of its kind left in the world.