Limestone figure holding a mask

Limestone figure holding a mask

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This remarkable work shows a male figure holding the mask of a lion against his head with his left hand. Unlike the three-dimensional masks in 74.51.2538 and 74.51.2515, this one is quite flat. Votive clay masks of lions are known from Cyprus and the Levant beginning in the eleventh century B.C. They may have some relation to the Egyptian goddess Sehkmet or may represent the most ferocious of beasts.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.