Metapontum was an Achaean colony from Sybaris and Croton founded about 700 B.C.  The city was built at the site of an existing settlement and was laid out on a rectangular grid system enclosed by a fortification wall. The sanctuary of Hera was located some 3 km outside the city walls. The stylobate was 34.29 meters long and 16.06 meters wide, the naos 17.79 x 8.68 meters and built with local limestone (so-called mazzarro), which is gradually deteriorating from the ravages of weather and time. The most famous citizen of Metapontum was Pythagoras who came to teach here after being expelled from the city of Croton and remained until his death about 500 B.C.

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The site and remains of Metapontum have been carefully examined by the Duc de Luynes. The remains of the Doric temple to Hera, known as the Tavole dei Palatine, still have fifteen columns standing, ten on one side and five on the other; but the two ends, as well as the whole of the entablature above the architrave and the walls of the cella, have wholly disappeared. The temple was built where ruins of a Neolithic village were found. The capitals were low and spreading in profile, with two necking rings. The temple was destroyed in the last quarter of the fourth century B.C., with the arrival of the Lucanians into Magna Graecia.  In the fifth century BC, the temple had a tiled roof with multi-coloured decoration in the Ionic tradition, with leonine protomes and gargoyles. Today only 15 columns remain standing; 5 on the south side and 10 on the north.