The stone base with the access steps and the delimitation of the cell that housed the divinity, the colored terracotta decorations of the roof with the drips in the shape of a lion, an extraordinary gorgon, a moving Aphrodite. But also seven astonishing bull heads, the altar with the grooved stone to collect the liquids of the sacrifices and hundreds of votive offerings among which stand out the images of an Eros riding a dolphin that the imagination could refer to the mythical Poseidon, the god who gave the city its name. In Paestum, the works to bring to light the sanctuary discovered in 2019 along the walls of the ancient city are revealing great surprises. An excavation, the director of the archaeological park Tiziana D’Angelo anticipates to ANSA, which promises to “change the known history of ancient Poseidonia”.
Almost like an open window on a 500-year-long fragment of the life of the city that the Greeks of Sybaris founded in 600 BC and which then passed under the Lucanians to eventually become a colony of Rome. Truly a unique context that “sheds a very interesting light on ancient religious life”, applauds the museum director Massimo Osanna from the ministry of culture, recalling that the archaeological research carried out in Paestum in the 1950s around the major temples was not scientifically documented.
Started in 2020 and immediately blocked by the pandemic, excavations resumed a few months ago: «What we find ourselves facing today is the moment in which the sanctuary, for reasons still to be clarified, was abandoned, between the end of the II and the beginning of the first century to C,” D’Angelo pressed. The analysis of the clay decorations has allowed us to date its foundation in the first quarter of the 5th century BC, when some of the most important monumental buildings that have come down to us had already been built in the Greek colony, the temple of Hera, built between 560 and 520 BC, and that of Athena, which dates back to 500 BC The temple of Neptune was completed instead a little later, in 460 BC, after a long gestation. Of very small dimensions – measuring 15.60 meters by 7.50 – with 4 columns on the front and 7 on the sides, the little temple is in Doric style like the others, but it is distinguished by the purity of its forms. “It is the smallest peripteral Doric temple that we know before the Hellenistic age, the first building in Paestum that fully expresses the Doric canon”, explains Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the former director of Paestum today at the guide of Pompeii who has just published a substantial study in Doric architecture.
«Almost a small model of the great temple of Neptune», which at the time must have been under construction, «a sort of missing link between the sixth and fifth centuries BC». Very important, therefore, also because it somehow demonstrates the artistic and cultural autonomy of the community and disavows those who have always believed that in the colonies they limited themselves to copying the productions of the mother country. However, the expanse of objects found in the space that separates the front of the building from the altar, erected as a rule outside, is also extraordinary: terracotta statuettes with the faces of the offerers or those of the deities, as many as 15 with the small eros riding the dolphin, miniature temples and altars. Small masterpieces of craftsmanship that are added to the seven bull heads found around the altar, perhaps “props” available to those who administered the cult. And which seem to have been placed on the ground with devotion, “as in a closing rite” reasons D’Angelo, implemented when the sanctuary, which also continued to be frequented even in the Lucan era and then from 273 BC with the arrival of the Romans, fell into disuse.
«Every day a surprise», smiles the director surrounded by the team of archaeologists coordinated by Francesco Mele. To understand more, of course, it will take time, studies, restorations, laboratory analyzes will be needed. Meanwhile, research is being carried out to document each period of the temple’s life up to the moment of its construction, also trying to understand the dynamics that led part of the walls to collapse at the back of the building. The elements of great interest «are many», enthuses D’Angelo. Like the signature – right on one of the statuettes with the dolphin – of the Avili, «a family of potters from Lazio, also known in Delos, whose presence here in Paestum had never been documented».
Or like the very special location of this sanctuary, built in the city, yes, but far from the center and the other temples, right next to the walls. Very close to the sea, on which it practically overlooked: “The ships that passed found themselves in front of it”, he points out. One thinks of the cupids on the dolphin and a Roman coin from the 3rd century BC which had Eros riding the dolphin on one side and Poseidon on the other. Could this be the temple named after the god who gave the city its name? D’Angelo shakes his head: “It’s still early to tell, but the hypothesis is extremely interesting.” So just a suggestion. Waiting for the excavations to shed new lights on history.