Terracotta oil lamp

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mold-made, with ring (?) handle; Small, flat discus decorated with a seven-petalled rosette and a single, central filling hole, and surrounded by a raised circle; on horizontal shoulder, pattern of close-set raised dots, with a line of three circles at front; a raised cross with central dot on top of nozzle, and large wick hole. Undefined, flat base, with indistinct, vertical herring bone pattern as the maker's mark. Body complete, but almost all of handle missing.

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