Limestone lower left leg

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Representations of parts of the body in stone were an established type of dedication in the Greek world from the fourth century B.C. on. Their purpose was to solicit divine help for a cure or to give thanks for a successful cure. Anatomical votive objects are well-known from Cyprus, and further examples are on display nearby in the case devoted to ancient medicine. While this lower left leg and foot could conceivably have belonged to a statue of another material with limbs of stone, it is more likely to have been an offering.

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