Steelyard Weight with the Bust of Athena

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A number of weights like this one survive from the late antique period. Weights were calibrated to specific standardized measurements. They were hung from hooks on one end of a balance to counter whatever goods were weighed on the other side. Bronze weights in the forms of courtly and mythological women are fairly common. The survival of classical subjects, such as Athena here, shows the pervasive taste for antiquity well into the early Byzantine period.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art