The magnificent virtual visits to the magnificent Italian artistic heritages continue on the MiBACT YouTube channel.
It is the turn of the Archaeological Park of Paestum. The director of the archaeological site, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, gives a mini lesson in architecture.
The Archaeological Park of Paestum participates in the campaign Culture does not stop. With a beautiful short video he guides us inside the park to let us know the ‘affinities’ of Poseidonia of Salerno with the monumentality of the temple of the queen of the Egyptians, Hatshepsut. It is quite normal to think that Greek and Egyptian culture do not have much to do with one another from an architectural point of view.
A land between myth and history: Paestum.
Origins and historical notes of one of the most beautiful cities of Magna Graecia.
Founded by the Greeks around 600 BC, it was initially called Poseidonia, from Poseidon, or Neptune, god of the sea, to whom the city was dedicated. Between 400 and 273 BC it was occupied by the Italic population of the Lucanians. In 273 it became a Roman colony with the name of Paestum. But there is no doubt that the foundation of the city was preceded by the installation of a commercial farm on the left bank and near the mouth of the Silaros river and that the malarial conditions of the land then induced the primitive settlers to move the inhabited center towards the east, on a bank slightly raised limestone on the plain and on the coast, along the course of another minor river (river Salso or Capofiume). From the primitive layout on the Silaros, the sea and river port of the city developed and the Temple of the Argive Era was built near it, which soon became one of the largest and most revered sanctuaries of ancient Italy: about 50 stadiums separated the city from the Heraion and the his emporium on the river. The end of the Roman Empire roughly coincided with the end of the city. In fact, around 500 AD, following an epidemic of malaria, aggravated by the unhealthiness of the area, the inhabitants gradually abandoned the city. The rediscovery of Paestum dates back to 1762, when the modern road that still crosses it was built.