The powerful polis of Sibari, founded between 720 and 710 BC by Achaean colonists led by Is di Elice, was one of the largest and richest sites in Magna Graecia. After a period of great hegemony, Sibari, defeated by Crotone and razed to the ground in 510 BC, was abandoned. On its ruins, the new city of Thurii was founded by Pericles between 444 and 443 BC; in 194 BC it became a Roman colony with the name of Copia and was inhabited until the 6th century AD.

The Archaeological Park of Sibari collects the evidence of this exceptional historical stratification. In the archaeological area it is possible to visit, among other things, the hemicycle-theatre, the public baths built in the Julio-Claudian era and enlarged in various successive phases, the remains of houses including the sumptuous domus north of the theater, the road layout of Hippodamian plant and the walls.

The Sibaritide National Archaeological Museum is housed in a building of approximately 4,000 m2 designed by the architect Riccardo Wallach within the Archaeological Park. The museum itinerary is divided into five rooms distributed on two levels, in which the significant finds from the excavations conducted in the Sibaritide are exhibited. The different phases of the occupation of the territory are documented, from the indigenous settlements of the Enotrian populations of the Bronze Age (II millennium BC) and the Iron Age (IX-VIII century BC), to continue with the testimonies of the three superimposed cities of Sibari , Thurii and Copia and their respective territories of influence (from the end of the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD).