The
Tomb of the Diver is an important archaeological monument, found by the Italian archaeologist Mario Napoli, on 3 June 1968, during his excavations of a small
necropolisA necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, meaning "city of the dead"...
about 1,5 km south of the
GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
city of
PaestumPaestum is the classical Roman name of a major Graeco-Roman city in the Campania region of Italy. It is located in the north of Cilento, near the coast about 85 km SE of Naples in the province of Salerno, and belongs to the commune of Capaccio, officially also named...
in
Magna GraeciaMagna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that was extensively colonized by Greek settlers, especially the Achaean collonies of Tatentium, Crotone and Sybaris but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neopolis to the north...
, now Southern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. The tomb is now displayed in the museum at Paestum.
It is a
graveGrave may refer to:*Grave *Grave accent*Grave *Grave *Grave, NetherlandsGrave might also refer to:*Peter Graves , an American film and television actor known for his starring role in the television series Mission: Impossible.*Dmitry Grave, a Russian mathematician*Ivan Grave, a Russian...
made of five local
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
slabs forming the four lateral walls and the roof, the floor being excavated in the natural rock ground.
The
Tomb of the Diver is an important archaeological monument, found by the Italian archaeologist Mario Napoli, on 3 June 1968, during his excavations of a small
necropolisA necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, meaning "city of the dead"...
about 1,5 km south of the
GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
city of
PaestumPaestum is the classical Roman name of a major Graeco-Roman city in the Campania region of Italy. It is located in the north of Cilento, near the coast about 85 km SE of Naples in the province of Salerno, and belongs to the commune of Capaccio, officially also named...
in
Magna GraeciaMagna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that was extensively colonized by Greek settlers, especially the Achaean collonies of Tatentium, Crotone and Sybaris but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neopolis to the north...
, now Southern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. The tomb is now displayed in the museum at Paestum.
It is a
graveGrave may refer to:*Grave *Grave accent*Grave *Grave *Grave, NetherlandsGrave might also refer to:*Peter Graves , an American film and television actor known for his starring role in the television series Mission: Impossible.*Dmitry Grave, a Russian mathematician*Ivan Grave, a Russian...
made of five local
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
slabs forming the four lateral walls and the roof, the floor being excavated in the natural rock ground. The five slabs, accurately bonded with
plasterThe term plaster can refer to plaster of Paris , lime plaster, or cement plaster. This article deals mainly with plaster of Paris / gypsum plaster....
, formed a chamber sized - roughly - 215x100x80 cm (7.1x3.3x2.6 ft). All the five slabs forming the monument were painted, on the interior sides, with the
true frescoFresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins...
technique. The paintings on the four walls depict a
symposiumSymposium originally referred to a drinking party but has since come to refer to any academic conference, or a style of university class characterized by an openly discursive format, rather than a lecture and question–answer format...
scene, while the cover slab was occupied by the famous scene that gives the tomb its name: a young man diving into a curling and waving stream of water. Two masters have been distinguished, the south wall being by a less impressive artist than the others.
When the tomb was discovered, these surprising frescos revealed its importance, as they appear to be the
only example of Greek painting with figured scenes dating from the Orientalizing, ArchaicThe archaic period in Greece is a period of Ancient Greek history. The term originated in the 18th century and has been standard since. This term arose from the study of Greek art, where it refers to styles mainly of surface decoration and plastique, falling in time between Geometric Art and the...
, or ClassicalClassical Greece was a culture that was highly advanced and which heavily influenced the cultures of Ancient Rome and still has an enduring effect on Western Civilization. Much of modern politics, artistic thought, scientific thought, literature, and philosophy derives from this ancient society...
periods to survive in its entirety. Among the thousands of Greek tombs known from this time (roughly 700–400 BC), this is the only one to have been decorated with frescoes of human subjects.
»
In the interior of the tomb, only a few objects were found: near the corpse (widely supposed to be a young man, despite the heavily deteriorated state of the skeleton) were a turtle shell, two
arýballoiAn aryballos was a small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck used in Ancient Greece. It was used to contain perfume or oil, and is often depicted in vase paintings as being used by athletes bathing...
and an
AtticAttica is a periphery in Greece, containing Athens, the capital of Greece. Attica is subdivided into the prefectures of Athens, Piraeus, East Attica and West Attica.-Overview:...
lekythosA lekythos is a type of Greek pottery used for storing oil, especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel. The lekythos was used for anointing dead bodies of unmarried men and many lekythoi are found in tombs. The images on lekythoi were often...
. These must have been the deceased youth's oil flasks, the ones he used to oil himself for wrestling practice at the
gymnasiumThe word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
, and his favorite drinking cup. This last object, in
black-figureThe black-figure pottery technique is a style of ancient Greek pottery painting in which the decoration appears as black silhouettes on a red background. Originating in Corinth during the early 7th century BC, it was introduced into Attica about a generation later...
technique from about 480 BC, helped the discoverer and other scholars date the tomb to about
470 BC-Greece:* Suspected of plotting to seize power in Sparta by instigating a helot uprising, Pausanias takes refuge in the Temple of Athena of the Brazen House to escape arrest. The sanctuary is respected, but the Spartans wall in the sanctuary and starve Pausanias to death.-Architecture:* The...
.
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