The powerful polis of Sybaris, founded between 720 and 710 BC by Achaean colonist led by Is of Elice, it was one of the biggest and richest(prosperous) 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 between 444 and 443 BC. It became a Roman colony under the name of Copia in 194 BC and was inhabited until the sixth 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 thermal baths built in the Julio-Claudian era and enlarged in several successive phases, the remains of houses including the sumptuous domus to the north of the theater, the road network of the Hippodamean plan and the walls. 
The National Archaeological Museum of the Sibaritide is housed in a building of about 4,000 square meters designed by architect Riccardo Wallach in the Archaeological Park. The museum itinerary is divided into five rooms distributed on two levels, in which are exposed the significant findings from the excavations conducted in the Sibaritide. The different phases of the occupation of the territory are documented, from the indigenous settlements of the Enotrian populations of the Bronze Age (2nd millennium B.C.) and of the Iron Age (9th-8th century B.C.), to continue with the evidences of the three overlapping cities of Sybaris, Thurii and Copia and their respective territories of influence (from the end of the 8th century B.C. to the 6th century A.D.).