Innovative virtual experience for Paestum's Tomb of the Diver: here's the 3D viewer

The Tomb of the Diver, one of the most famous and mysterious archaeological finds of ancient Paestum, returns to be the protagonist of a digital enhancement project capable of offering a brand new mode of fruition. Thanks to Haltadefinizione’s initiative, courtesy of the Archaeological Parks of Paestum and Velia, the 5th-century B.C.E. funerary masterpiece can now be explored with unprecedented precision and realism. The use of the most advanced digital technologies, combining gigapixel images, 3-D reconstructions and mixed reality, is opening up new avenues for the accessibility and enhancement of archaeological heritage, allowing the public to immerse themselves in one of the few remaining vestiges of Greek funerary painting.

The experience proposed by Haltadefinizione aims to be a quantum leap in accessibility to historical and artistic heritage. After a first preview at We Make Future in Bologna last June, the virtual exploration of the Tomb of the Diver, using augmented reality technologies such as the Apple Vision Pro visor, will again be available to the public on November 1 and 2 during the XXVI Mediterranean Archaeological Tourism Exchange in Paestum. Inside the Ministry of Culture’s booth, visitors will be able to enjoy an immersive experience that not only allows them to observe the Tomb’s paintings in great detail, but also offers a virtual reconstruction that restores the original iconographic composition.

The painted slabs of the Tomb of the Diver, now on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Paestum, have long been disassembled and displayed individually to allow for accurate viewing by the public. However, this has always limited the understanding of the original layout of the tomb, depriving viewers of the opportunity to see the work as it was originally conceived. Thanks to the new digitization project, it is now possible to virtually reconstruct the tomb in its entirety, providing an accurate and immersive view of the work. This project, the result of two separate acquisition campaigns, has made it possible to combine high-resolution gigapixel images with three-dimensional data, resulting in a virtual reproduction that realistically restores both the texture and depth of the pictorial surfaces.

In addition to mixed reality exploration, a 360-degree viewer is now available on Haltadefinizione’s website that allows visitors to view the Tomb of the Diver directly from home. This online platform offers a full view of the tomb in ultra-high definition, allowing you to zoom in on every detail of the paintings and appreciate the chromatic nuances and the strokes of the artists who created them. In fact, gigapixel technologies enable such high image definition that every tiny mark, every shadow, and every pictorial detail becomes visible as never before.

But what exactly is the Tomb of the Diver? It is one of the most precious testimonies of Greek funerary painting, unique in terms of the art of ancient Paestum. The tomb was discovered in 1968 in the Tempa del Prete necropolis, and it is a sarcophagus decorated with extraordinary paintings depicting a young man diving from a stone structure into a river or the sea, a scene from which it takes its name. The figure of the diver is flanked by other convivial scenes that are developed on the side slabs of the sarcophagus. The iconography of the diver has been interpreted as a metaphor for the passage from life to death, a symbol of the journey to the afterlife that reflects the beliefs of the time. The Tomb of the Diver is also an artistic enigma, as it represents a rarity in the landscape of Greek funerary paintings, which are typically poor in decoration and limited to geometric patterns. This makes the tomb not only an object of enormous historical value, but also one of the most fascinating and studied masterpieces of ancient art.

The new digital enjoyment of the Tomb of the Diver represents a step forward for the enhancement of Italy’s archaeological heritage. While digital accessibility has already made possible new forms of knowledge and study, the use of augmented reality and mixed reality technologies adds a level of immersion and involvement that exceeds the physical limits of the traditional museum experience. With the Apple Vision Pro, for example, visitors can interact with the virtual reconstruction of the tomb, viewing the painted scenes from every angle and fully immersing themselves in the diver’s vision and the historical context in which the work was created. This kind of innovation makes it possible to extend the potential of cultural heritage beyond the physical boundaries of museums, creating an experience that not only enriches the understanding of the works, but also invites a wider audience to discover and appreciate ancient art. The project has thus attracted interest not only for its technological innovation, but also for the possibilities it opens up in terms of scientific and educational outreach.

“The Tomb of the Diver,” says Tiziana D’Angelo, director of the Paestum Park, “is undoubtedly one of the most iconic monuments of the Paestum Archaeological Park. Its paintings are known all over the world; yet the project carried out by Haltadefinizione, with the creation of a digital twin of the tomb, manages to show them from a new perspective. Through the use of innovative technologies, images and context are recreated virtually in a realistic and extremely accurate way, offering visitors an immersive and fully accessible viewing experience and scholars new opportunities for analysis and research.”

Innovative virtual experience for Paestum's Tomb of the Diver: here's the 3D viewer

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