Limestone statuette of Pan or Opaon Melanthios

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This figure with the horns and ears of a goat wears an animal skin and holds a syrinx (double pipes) and a pedum (shepherd's crook). Images of this type first appeared in Cypriot sanctuaries during the Hellenistic period. They may represent Pan, the Greek god who protected herdsmen and shepherds, or they may be associated with Opaon Melanthios, a Cypriot deity of rural life and fertility, who is known from inscriptions.

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