Ostrakon with Lines from Homer’s Iliad

Ostrakon with Lines from Homer’s Iliad

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ostraca are texts written on broken pottery, which were employed when parchment was unavailable or too expensive. At Epiphanius a large number of ostraca were discovered in the monastery, including in its rubbish heaps; they record biblical verses, legal documents, sermons, financial accounts, school texts, and letters requesting assistance and prayers. Some reveal that, even at the southernmost border of the Empire, people were still aware of events in the capital, Constantinople. Ostracon with Lines from Homer’s Iliad “Sing, goddess, the wrath of Peleus’s son,” the opening line of the Iliad, is written four times, probably as a school exercise in writing cursive Greek. Other lines from Homer are found on other ostraca.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ostrakon with Lines from Homer’s IliadOstrakon with Lines from Homer’s IliadOstrakon with Lines from Homer’s IliadOstrakon with Lines from Homer’s IliadOstrakon with Lines from Homer’s Iliad

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.