Limestone plaque with bilingual inscription

Limestone plaque with bilingual inscription

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This funerary plaque is unusual in that it has inscriptions in both Latin and Greek, each of which follows conventions appropriate to the respective language. It reads in Latin above: “Julia Donata, the freedwoman of Olympus, lies here” and in Greek below: “Good Ioulia Donata, the freedwoman of Olympos, farewell.”

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone plaque with bilingual inscriptionLimestone plaque with bilingual inscriptionLimestone plaque with bilingual inscriptionLimestone plaque with bilingual inscriptionLimestone plaque with bilingual inscription

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.