Terracotta cinerary urn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The container depicts a fantastic head with bovine ears and wearing a Phrygian cap with wings. This soft, cloth cap was worn by the people of ancient Phrygia (modern central Turkey). Certain divinities, including Castor and Pollux, and heroes, including Paris, as well as Amazons, are often depicted wearing it. Other examples of this subject, made from the same mold, come from Chiusi, the likely site of manufacture for the entire group.. The dedicatory inscription in red paint is too poorly preserved to read.

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