Beautiful Photos of the Ancient Greek Tomb of the Diver

Fresco paintings from antiquity are extremely rare due to their obvious fragility so the Tomb of the Diver Fresco is very rare. The greatest amount of Ancient painted tomb art is from Ancient Egypt where the desert climate and deep tombs were perfect for the preservation of fresco. In Italy incredible  Etruscan wonderful tomb paintings can be seen at the Necropolis of Monterozzi Tombs, Tarquinia, where the combination o deep tombs cut into volcanic tuff have preserved the frescoes.

Ancient Greek fresco paintings are very rare but a beautiful example can be found in Paestum Archaeological Site Museum in southern Italy. Paestum was a Greek colony of Magna Graecia founded in about 550 to 450 BC and named Poseidonia. In 1968 Italian archaeologist Mario Napoli was excavating a small necropolis about 1.5 km south of Paestum where he discovered sealed tombs. They were built onto the natural bedrock onto on which stood 5 limestone slabs forming rectangular tombs. They had been sealed with plaster that was still intact.

One of these tombs that came to be known as the Tomb of the Diver. It is 215 × 100 × 80 cm (7.1 × 3.3 × 2.6 ft) in size and when opened it was discovered that all of the walls of the chamber were painted with depictions using a true fresco technique. A corpse of a young man was found in the tomb with a turtle shell, two arýballoi and an Attic lekythos painted using a technique from about 480 BC, which allowed scholars to date the tomb to about 470 BC.

The walls of the Tomb of the Diver have frescoes paintings depicting a symposium which is very rare in a funerary context. Both long sides of the tomb depict 5 figures reclining on loungers  adorned with crowns. The northern long wall depicts the second man from the left playing kottabos, a game in which sediment left at the bottom of the kylix was thrown at a target. One of the two men on the far right of the panel is resisting the advances of the other man. The southern long wall shows 5 figures with wreaths on their heads. The two central men are drinking whilst the others play instruments. The two end  walls of the tomb depict : a naked slave with a crater ; the other depicts two men arriving late for the symposium, one is nude and scholars believe may be a representation of the deceased. The Fresco on the ceiling of the tomb gives it its name. It depicts a male figure diving into the sea.

Other tombs were discovered at the necropolis that had fresco paintings of horses and equine sport. Scholars believe that these were tombs of the Campanians who took control of Paestum in around 400 BC . They were obsessed with equine sports so would have decorated their tombs accordingly. The Tomb of the Diver Paestum depictions are unique in this Necropolis and the depictions of a symposium in a tomb made scholars question who built it. 

The depictions in the symposium are characteristic of known Ancient Greek culture. The lack of clothes of the figures was associated in Ancient Greeks with the gods giving the depicted symposium an association with the afterlife. The depicted advances of the older man to the younger was accepted in ancient Greek culture. The concept of a diver was used in Ancient Greek archaic pottery  to symbolise the death of a loved one evoking the passage to the afterlife. Although most scholars believe that the Tomb of the Diver was Ancient Greek in origin, the depictions of a symposium are not usual in Ancient Greek funerary contexts.

Scholars have attributed the fresco paintings to two different artists of the era. The more accomplished frescoes have been attributed to  Maestro del Tuffatore who outlined his figures. The less accomplished frescoes of the south wall have been attributed to Maestro della Lastra Sud due to their general lack of detailed working. 

To help see how the overall artistic design of the Tomb of the Diver would have looked 2500 years ago I have reconstructed the tomb with a view from either side looking in. I hope you find this interesting. See all of the Tomb of the Diver Frescoes and more tomb frescoes from Paestum.