Paestum — Paestum
Paestum Doking, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 3.0

Site · Italy

Paestum

Ancient Greece, Roman, 600 BCE–500 CE

Paestum is the Greek colony of Poseidonia south of Salerno, founded around 600 BCE, whose three Doric temples are the best preserved in the Greek world. It passed to the Lucanians and then Rome and was abandoned in the early Middle Ages.

CountryItaly
State / provinceCampania
Dates600 BCE–500 CE
StatusArchaeological park and UNESCO World Heritage Site
Managed byParco Archeologico di Paestum e Velia, Ministero della Cultura
AccessOpen to the public with a museum housing the painted tombs
Coordinates40.422, 15.005 (public site)

What was found

The Tomb of the Diver with its painted slabs, Lucanian painted tombs, the Hera sanctuary's metopes and bronze hydriae, Greek and Lucanian pottery and the three Doric temples are the principal discoveries. The site museum displays the Tomb of the Diver slabs.

Rules

Nothing may be collected, dug, moved or removed at Paestum; it is a protected archaeological site managed by Parco Archeologico di Paestum e Velia, Ministero della Cultura, and taking artifacts, stones or samples is an offence. Italian law vests all archaeological finds in the state, and removal or export is a crime. This article is for study and context only and is not a collecting locality.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Paestum" (Site). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/study/sites/paestum. Accessed 2026-09-21.

@misc{stratum-paestum,
  title        = {Paestum},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/sites/paestum}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Site article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-21; Study pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id site:paestum.

Stratum is the inventory, provenance and certificate system for fossil, mineral and shell collections. Study is its open reference: every fact cites its source, and the credits page lists each one with its licence.