Glass weight

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale yellow green. Circular disk with rounded edge; impressed upper surface; flat bottom. On obverse, stamp in low relief, comprising a cruciform monogram, encircled by a line. Intact; dulling and pitting, with traces of brownish weathering. The weight is stamped with a Greek monogram to guarantee its authenticity. Such small glass weights were used by the Byzantines and later by the Arabs to check the value of gold and silver coins. This example weighs the equivalent of a semissis (half of a solidus, the standard gold coin).

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