Terracotta spindle whorl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Engraved decoration, filled with lime; around the body is a large zigzag made up of oblique lines with dots along one side and rows of short parallel strokes along the other; in the open spaces are small groups of parallel horizontal strokes; on the base is a ring of zigzag lines around a ring containing parallel strokes. This spindle-whorl may come from the northern coast of Cyprus (Lapithos or Vounous, or possibly Dhenia). (VK)

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art