Terracotta Hadra hydria (water jar)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The body carries very faint traces of an inscription. The "L" shaped stroke indicates that the regnal year, and therefore the date of this hydria, were at one time possible to determine before the part of the inscription which included the actual year faded. Still visible however is the word "Gortinos," which tells us that the deceased came from ancient Gortyns on the island of Crete.

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