Terracotta oil lamp

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Broneer Type 28. Mold-made, with unpierced handle. Discus: bust of helmeted Athena, facing left; a single filling hole at edge to right; around discus, a band of two raised concentric lines, surrounded. Shoulder: stylized wreath interrupted by panels at sides. A small hole at the back of the nozzle. Incised lines running along length of the handle. Within an impressed base ring, a flat base impressed with the Greek letters EY. Intact. The base of the handle appears to have been made with the lamp in the mold; the top and front was then carelessly added with a plain bridge joining the two parts. The lamp was made in Athens and is decorated appropriately with the bust of Athena (Roman Minerva) on the discus.

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