Founded in 1968, it is located on Via Risorgimento, in the heart of the city's historic center. The two-story building houses all the most significant finds from archaeological sites throughout the Crotone area. In particular, the rich archaeological finds come from the Sanctuary of Hera Lacinia, located in Capo Colonna.
The Iron Age is well documented, with rich grave goods and artifacts from the province of Crotone, as well as vases and amphorae classified by origin: Corinthian, Chalcidian, Attic, and Italiot. A large section is dedicated to the so-called "Treasure of Hera Lacinia," a votive room with objects of the highest artistic value, discovered in the Capo Colonna Archaeological Park. This rich collection includes masterpieces such as the winged sphinx, the gorgon, and the Nuragic boat.
Among these, the splendid Golden Diadem, also known as the "Crown of Hera," stands out. It consists of a band of gold foil with a braided decoration on the inside, while the outside features a line of leaves and berries supported by intertwined threads. No similar jewels are currently known to be in the same state of preservation that would allow us to determine the crown's provenance and purpose, although some scholars hypothesize that it crowned a statue of the goddess Hera Lacinia.
Other sections document the area's sanctuaries: that of Apollo Aleo at Krimisa (Punta Alice in Cirò Marina), the Doric temple of Kaulonia, and a cult area at Punta Stilo. In 2007, the museum's collection was enriched with another highly valuable find, from a clandestine excavation at Strongoli and brought to the Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, in 1992. It is an askos, a 5th-century bronze ointment jar depicting a siren with the body of a bird and the head of a woman.
