Glass jar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green. Thick horizontal rim, with rounded tubular edge, folded out, down, in, and down again, forming collar around neck, unevenly tooled and set at an angle to ovoid body; concave bottom. Intact, but some small internal cracks; many bubbles, some black streaky impurities in rim; faint iridescent weathering on exterior, limy encrustation and thick, creamy brown weathering on interior. Sealed inside the tubular rim is visible a quantity of liquid, probably water, that seeped in when the jar was buried.

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