The Tomb of the Diver - I
The Tomb of the Diver (in the photo East, North, West and ceiling painted slabs), is the only example of Greek painting with figured scenes dating from the Orientalizing, Archaic, or Classical periods to survive in its entirety. Among the thousands of Greek tombs known from this time (roughly 700-400 B.C.), this is the only one to have been decorated with frescoes of human subjects.
It was created about 470 B.C., in the Greek city of Poseidonia (in Roman times known as Paestum) on the Tyrrhenian coast of South Italy. Although little of the skeleton was preserved, it is widely assumed that the occupant was a young man. A plain black-glazed lekythos of about 480 accompanied him, as did the carapace of a tortoise, which almost surely had been the sounding box of a lyre, the wooden frame of which had completely disintegrated.
Four separate slabs formed the walls of a tomb, which was no larger than a good-sized sarcophagus. A fifth slab formed the roof. The paintings covering the walls of the tomb place the viewer in the center of a symposium: the evening gathering of citizens of Greek communities devoted to conversation, poetry, and politics, amid the added pleasures of wine and erotic adventure. On each of the two long walls (north and south), three couches and their serving tables are positioned so as to appear to rest on the broad red dado below them. There are five occupants of the couches on each wall: a single symposiast on the left-hand couch and a couple on each of the adjoining two couches. Each of the figures is covered below the waist by a coverlet. They are all crowned, and additional crowns are placed on the serving tables. On the east short wall a serving boy is standing near a krater; on the west wall a symposiast, nude but with a stole over his arms, is leaving the gathering.
Despite its unique status as a tomb painting, the symposium scene of the Tomb of the Diver is oddly familiar because the same scene is well known from the decoration of contemporary Attic painted pottery. This cannot be said for the painting found on the ceiling of the tomb. The image of a diver is almost unknown in Greek art, and this scene of a lonely figure plunging past a masonry tower into a stream is unique.
Source; R. Ross Holloway. “The Tomb of the Diver”, in American Journal of Archaeology,
Greek frescos
480 – 470 BC
Discovered by Mario Napoli in June of 1968 near Paestum.
Paestum, Archaeological Museum
The Tomb of the Diver - I
The Tomb of the Diver (in the photo East, North, West and ceiling painted slabs), is the only example of Greek painting with figured scenes dating from the Orientalizing, Archaic, or Classical periods to survive in its entirety. Among the thousands of Greek tombs known from this time (roughly 700-400 B.C.), this is the only one to have been decorated with frescoes of human subjects.
It was created about 470 B.C., in the Greek city of Poseidonia (in Roman times known as Paestum) on the Tyrrhenian coast of South Italy. Although little of the skeleton was preserved, it is widely assumed that the occupant was a young man. A plain black-glazed lekythos of about 480 accompanied him, as did the carapace of a tortoise, which almost surely had been the sounding box of a lyre, the wooden frame of which had completely disintegrated.
Four separate slabs formed the walls of a tomb, which was no larger than a good-sized sarcophagus. A fifth slab formed the roof. The paintings covering the walls of the tomb place the viewer in the center of a symposium: the evening gathering of citizens of Greek communities devoted to conversation, poetry, and politics, amid the added pleasures of wine and erotic adventure. On each of the two long walls (north and south), three couches and their serving tables are positioned so as to appear to rest on the broad red dado below them. There are five occupants of the couches on each wall: a single symposiast on the left-hand couch and a couple on each of the adjoining two couches. Each of the figures is covered below the waist by a coverlet. They are all crowned, and additional crowns are placed on the serving tables. On the east short wall a serving boy is standing near a krater; on the west wall a symposiast, nude but with a stole over his arms, is leaving the gathering.
Despite its unique status as a tomb painting, the symposium scene of the Tomb of the Diver is oddly familiar because the same scene is well known from the decoration of contemporary Attic painted pottery. This cannot be said for the painting found on the ceiling of the tomb. The image of a diver is almost unknown in Greek art, and this scene of a lonely figure plunging past a masonry tower into a stream is unique.
Source; R. Ross Holloway. “The Tomb of the Diver”, in American Journal of Archaeology,
Greek frescos
480 – 470 BC
Discovered by Mario Napoli in June of 1968 near Paestum.
Paestum, Archaeological Museum