Photo: Sailko · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museo archeologico nazionale della Sibaritide

Archaeological museum at Casabianca with finds from Sybaris, Thurii and Copiae and from the whole Sibaritide, from the indigenous communities to the Roman colony.

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. From 16 February the museum has been temporarily closed to the public for requalification and improvement works; the archaeological park of Sibari has its own access.

About the museum

The museum preserves and enhances the finds from the archaeological area of Sybaris-Thurii-Copiae and, more generally, from the whole territory of the Sibaritide. The oldest materials belong to the indigenous communities that lived in the area before the arrival of Greek colonists, from the 2nd millennium BC.

The Greeks came into contact with these communities at the end of the 8th century BC, when colonists from Achaea, in the northern Peloponnese, founded Sybaris, which in just two centuries became one of the richest and most refined centres of Magna Graecia. After its destruction, the Greek city of Thurii arose on its ruins; in the 5th and 4th centuries BC it had intense relations with the indigenous settlements of the Brettii; at the beginning of the 2nd century BC it became the Roman colony of Copiae.

The display traces these centuries of encounter between different civilisations. The museum belongs to the network of the Parchi archeologici di Crotone e Sibari, which also includes the archaeological park of Sibari, where the remains of Copiae are visible, such as the semicircular theatre (emiciclo-teatro), the baths, the domus and the north gate, and the road grid of Thurii. Excavations in the area began in 1932 with Umberto Zanotti Bianco and resumed continuously from 1969.

Highlights

Finds from Sybaris, Thurii and Copiae
Materials of the indigenous communities of the Sibaritide from the 2nd millennium BC
History of the Greek colony of Sybaris, founded at the end of the 8th century BC
Archaeological park of Sibari with semicircular theatre, baths and domus