National Archaeological Museum of Paestum
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| place | Via Magna Graecia, 919, Capaccio Paestum 
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Archaeological Museum
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| architect | Marcello De Vita |
| opening | November 27, 1952 |
| Number of visitors (annually) | 443,000 (2019) |
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The National Archaeological Museum of Paestum ( Italian Museo archeologico nazionale di Paestum ) in the municipality of Capaccio Paestum is one of almost 60 national archaeological museums in Italy. It is one of the most important museums of its kind and houses archaeological finds from prehistory to late antiquity from the region south of the Sele River , in particular from the ancient city of Paestum / Poseidonia and its surroundings.
In addition to the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto , the National Archaeological Museum in Paestum is now considered the most important museum for Lower Italian and Western Greek art. With more than 440,000 visitors in 2017 and 2019, the museum including the archaeological park is one of the most visited archaeological museums in Italy. As part of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park , the museum has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 1998 .
history
The museum was built in 1952 after a long planning phase under the direction of the building authority Genio civile and goes back in part to older plans by Marcello de Vita, the architect of the Direzione Generale Antichà e Belle Arti , from 1938. Thus it stands in the tradition of " Italian rationalism ", the formative architectural style in fascism . The lack of an architectural caesura and the adherence to an architectural style with which fascism was also to be glorified in other museum buildings in the past, as was the case, for example, with the ship museum on Lake Nemisee or with the building of the Ara Pacis museum in Rome , led to some Criticism. In retrospect, the construction within the Area archeologica di Paestum , i.e. the archaeological park, in the immediate vicinity of the temples was criticized, as the ruins underneath were removed quite ruthlessly during the construction.
Nevertheless, the importance of the museum was considerable from the start, as demonstrated by the presence of the Italian President Luigi Einaudi , the Minister of Education Antonio Segni and the Vice-President of the Italian Senate Alberti at the opening on November 27, 1952. Initially it was intended for the finds from the Foce del Sele , a Heraion north of Paestum, which were found under the direction of Paola Zancani Monturo and Umberto Zanotti Bianco . The architectural equipment was also done in such a way that it gave an idea of the contours of the ancient temple to which the ancient metopes were attached. But it did not stop with these finds as originally planned. After the excavations of Soprintendenza Salerno in the ruins of the ancient city and the necropolis were intensified in 1951 under Pellegrino Sestieri , local finds as well as finds from experimental excavations in Arensola could already be shown at the opening . The first excavation campaign took place between December 13, 1951 and September 13, 1952. In order for finds from the first successful campaign at the Neptune Temple to be shown at the opening, the processing and restoration of the finds had to be carried out particularly quickly. In the following years the excavations continued and also started in various places in the surrounding area. As a result, the space in the museum quickly became too small and the museum had to be expanded by an extension in the form of a large, light-flooded hall, which the architect Ezio De Felice developed. The new rooms were built around an inner courtyard and the large windows face the city.
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After excavations led by Mario Napoli in 1968 found many Lucanian graves, often with artistic paintings, a new conception of the exhibition became necessary, which Giovanni De Franciscis and Sabrina Viola took care of. In 1999 there was another general redesign of the museum, with a Roman section on the upper floor and a didactic section including a demonstration room in the basement. In addition to the exhibition rooms and the didactics, the museum also includes administrative rooms, magazines, an archive, as well as a photo, drawing and restoration workshop.
Since the restructuring of the Italian national museums , which took place in several steps between 2016 and 2020, the museum in Paestum, together with the Area archeologica di Paestum and the Area archeologica e Museo narrante di Foce Sele, forms the Parco archeologico di Paestum e Velia, which is autonomous from other institutions .
Gabriel Zuchtriegel has been director of the museum since 2015, succeeding Marina Capriani .
Collection holdings and presentation
Collection presentation
Originally, almost the entire ground floor was filled with the finds from the Heraion of the mouth of the Sela, the central hall and the second floor with finds from Paestum.
Ground floor: From Poseidonia to Paestum
After the entrance, the cash desk, information desk, bookstore and, in the center, a room for special exhibitions follow. The metopes from the sanctuary of the Argive Hera are displayed around the central space for the special exhibitions . The room repeats the dimensions of the so-called Thesaurus of Heraion. On the outside walls of the hall, seen from the entrance, finds from the archaic city and the surrounding area are shown on the right-hand side, on the front wall from the inner-city, underground Heraion . The next room shows finds from the Hera sanctuary at the Sele estuary.
Finds from the northern city sanctuary follow in a small room on the right. In a tour around the inner courtyard of the garden, the finds from the southern city sanctuary and the sanctuaries in the surrounding area follow. Finds from the Greek-Lucan sanctuaries are shown in the next room, with the diver's grave in a separate room . Other finds follow, especially paintings, from Lucanian graves. On the left side of the entrance hall finds on the culture of writing and the handicrafts of the Lukan-Greek city are shown.
Gallery: prehistory and early history
The finds from prehistory and early history are presented in the gallery. In chronological order are findings from the Palaeolithic , the Neolithikum , the copper matte time , the bronze age and the iron time shown. A focus in the area of the Copper Age are the finds from the Gaudo culture , and exhibits on grave rites are particularly highlighted.
First floor: Paestum in Roman times
The presentation of the Roman section follows a thematic pattern. First, finds are shown that are related to the establishment of the colony . Other objects from the forum follow, followed by artefacts that show the cultic life in the city and its surroundings. Then finds that can be assigned to private life are shown, followed by finds that can be assigned to social and political life in the colony. This section moves on to the presentation of artifacts related to the public monuments of the late Roman Republic and the Imperial Era, a special presentation is devoted to the Sanctuary of Santa Venera . In the following, objects from the townhouses of the imperial era are shown, then from the necropolises of that time. Finds from the Flavian colony and the period from the 3rd to the 5th century conclude.
Collection holdings
The oldest finds from the area of the later city are worked stone tools, scrapers and splinters from the Middle Paleolithic, which dates from around 35,000 years BC. To be dated. The Neolithic Age is represented by ceramic fragments, in particular from the Serra d'Alto culture , as well as a “Venus” statuette fragment made of clay. The largest number of prehistoric finds come from the Contrada Gaudo and belong to the archaeological culture of the same name. They were discovered in 1943 while building an Allied airport. Several metal daggers and a ceramic olla protrude from the finds . There are only a few finds from the catchment area from the Bronze Age, here four bronze ax heads from the early and ceramic fragments from the Middle Bronze Age are the most important. They come from a small settlement at Porta Giustizia . There are also a few finds that can be assigned to the Mycenaean culture . The most important finds from the Iron Age do not come from Paestum itself, but from Arensola and Tempalta .
The archaic metopes from Heraion am Sele are among the most important finds in the museum's holdings . The sandstone sculptures , some of which are in relief and some as outline drawings, show events from Greek mythology , such as the Iliu persis or the deeds of Heracles. They are dated between 770 and 760 BC. Dated. In addition, other architectural elements and other finds from the Heraion are exhibited, including a special find an open lamp made of clay, whose basin for the fuel rests on several female figures with folded arms. Grave finds from Laghetto and Arcioni show the presence of indigenous inhabitants who were displaced after the arrival of the Greeks. These graves also contain grave goods from Greek production, such as Protocorinthian ceramics . It can therefore be assumed that the city and the surrounding area were taken possession of by the Greeks at about the same time.
For the early days of the ancient Greek city, there are finds from the end of the 6th century BC. Built sacellum hypogeicum , a sanctuary that must have been a Heroon , and from around 470 BC. Built Ekklesiasterion , a round assembly room. In the underground building, among other things, two bronze hydriai were found as well as a belly amphora in the black-figure style , which the anonymous Attic vase painter had decorated with the emergency name Chiusi painter . Another find from the Heraion from this settlement period is, for example, a dinosaur by the Antimenes painter . A statue of Hera , which is a rare example of a sculpture made of Paestan marble , points to the early Lucanian period . With other finds that allow shooting at a female cult, she was found in a building constructed from parts of other buildings .
Both votive offerings and parts of the architectural ornamentation are shown from the city's sanctuaries . For example, there are polychrome roof cladding panels from the Temple of Athena. There are also elements made of sandstone such as capitals from the cella , architraves and eaves surrounds . Outstanding pieces from the Hera Temple are, for example, antefixes in the form of female busts, a group of figures from Europe and the bull made of clay, and a neck amphora composed of various fragments by the red-figure Nikoxenos painter . Not far from the two temples one to one was hero worship belonging Cippus found that on in an archaic form of Greek writing Chironos , so of Chiron is.
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In the surrounding area there were other smaller sanctuaries that were founded in Greek times and lived on in Lucanian times. Finds from Fonte , Getsemani , San Nicola , Albanella , Santa Venera and Capodifiume are shown in the museum . The changes in burial customs can be traced on the basis of the finds from the city's necropolis. Among the finds stands out here a red-figure Attic pelike , on which palaestra scenes can be seen on both sides . While in Greek times the trend was to curb grave luxury, that changed with the predominance of the Lucanians from the second half of the 5th century BC. Chr. Sustainable. Grave luxury became common especially for the city's wealthy families. Graves probably belonging to mercenaries are richly marked with weapons, and in some cases whole armor was given to the dead. The findings of a grave particularly stand out. In addition to four fibulae , which were supposed to hold the garment together so that the corpse was completely covered, the special feature was a flat head carved as a relief, which was the face of the corpse as a cover plate of the grave. One theory is that it may have been a mercenary shaman .
The museum in Paestum is particularly well-known for its extensive collection of Lucan tomb paintings. The box and chamber graves on the inside of the slabs are extremely colorful and imaginative. The diver's grave is a special case because it is the only such grave monument from Greek times. About 80 such paintings were found in around 1000 known Lukan graves, which indicates the limitation of such furnishings for the city elite. The most famous tombs include the tomb of the colorful rooster , the tomb of the white rooster , the tomb of the piebald , the tomb of the pomegranates , the tomb of the funeral games , the tomb of the black knight , the tomb of mother and child , the tomb of the mourning women , the grave of the deer hunt , the grave of the returning knight , the grave of the fighting animals , the grave of the nereid and the grave of the mule cart . In a separate room, the reconstruction of the grave of Spinazzo is shown, which was illegally recovered by robbery graves and later confiscated and placed in the care of the museum in Paestum. It comes from a time when the decoration of the graves with paintings was visibly coming to an end; Out of the entire necropolis, only seven of the 120 graves are known to have such features. They are characterized by a very high quality and a strong naturalness.
While it was assumed during the construction of the museum that hardly any finds other than those from the Heraion at the mouth of the Sela were found, the excavations from 1952 onwards gradually uncovered a large number of important finds from the settlement as well. Paestum turned out to be one of the five stylistic centers of Lower Italian , Paestan vase painting . The two main masters of the style, Asteas and Python, are the only vase painters of Magna Graecia known by name to this day . Another major painter of the style is the Aphrodite Painter . The museum owns a large number of works from all these vase painters. The remains of the pottery were also found near Port Marina in the western part of the city.
With the establishment of the Roman colony, the Greek organizational structures were outdated. The Heroon was literally buried and placed underground. There was no longer any need for the Ekklesiasterion either, which is why it was filled in. Among other things, some ceramics were buried with them, some of which had already been described with Latin graffiti . There was also a female terracotta figure from this period. A bronze statue of Marsyas with no arms and no shackles is possibly a copy of the Marsyas statue that was erected in the Roman Forum by plebeians in Rome . Various finds from private houses show the luxury of living in the city, for example in the form of clay wall reliefs or relief table bases. In contrast, there was the break with the Lukan tradition of grave luxury. Olla-shaped urns without grave goods became the norm.
Two marble portrait busts of high quality come from the late Republican period. In 1998, on the site of the city, a probably in the year 12 BC. A buried coin treasure with 647 silver denarii found - almost three times the annual salary of a Roman legionnaire . The coins range from the 2nd century BC. Until the early reign of Augustus . In the basilica , the remains of a tank statue, probably the son, nephew or younger brother of Minera , the wife of Gaius Cocceius Flaccus , a partisan of Gaius Julius Caesar , were found. Minera was a patroness of the city, which is why this honorary statue, the " Togato Spinazzola ", found public display . Busts of Livia Drusilla and her son Tiberius, for example, and a marble copy of Aphrodite Anadyomene in the sanctuary of Santa Venera have been found in various places in public space .
From the time after the founding of the Flavian colony in 71, several high-quality examples from the field of sculpture are shown, including a statue of Artemis without a preserved head, portraits of young people and the portrait of a lady-in-waiting from the Trajan period. From the 4th century onwards, the finds are only sparse and life in the area is archaeologically difficult to grasp and therefore difficult to present.
literature
- Pellegrino Sestieri : The new museum in Paestum. (= Guide to the museums, galleries and monuments of Italy. Volume 89). Instituto Poliografico dello Stato, Rome 1964.
- Marina Capriani , Agnès Rouveret , Angela Pontrandolfo : The Tomba del Tuffatore and other graves with wall paintings in Paestum. Pandemos, Paestum 2004, ISBN 88-87744-64-5 .
- Christoph Höcker : Paestum. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 15/2, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01488-6 , Sp. 5-13.
- Marina Capriani, Fausto Longo : The National Archaeological Museum in Paestum. History, architecture and exhibition. (= Quaderni di Antichità Pestane. Volume 2), Pandemos, Paestum 2010, ISBN 88-87744-30-0 .
Web links
- Homepage of the National Archaeological Museum Paestum ( Italian ) • ( English )
- Museum and Archaeological Park on the website of the Italian Ministry of Culture (Italian)