Glass cinerary urn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green; handles in same color. Everted rim, folded down, round, up, and in, forming a solid, vertical collar and upward-projecting lip; flaring mouth; short, concave neck; large, piriform body; splayed hollow foot; concave bottom; two vertical, omega-shaped handles, attached on opposite sides of upper body, each made of a thick trail, applied as a large circular pad, drawn across body from left to right, and trailed off back along top of handle. Intact; pinprick bubbles and bands of horizontal scratches on exterior of mouth and upper part of body; dulling, patches of thick creamy brown weathering, and iridescence on exterior, and brilliant iridescent weathering and soil encrustation on interior. For holding ashes of the dead.

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