Terracotta Megarian bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rosettes banded by ridges above rows of stylized ferns The floral motifs, matt glaze, and in-turned rim of this bowl are characteristics of pottery found in great quantities on the Greek island of Delos, an important trading center in the Cyclades. Potter stamps on many of these bowls, however, suggest that they were in fact made by workshops on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor (Turkey) and then imported to Delos. Bowl fragments with very similar relief decoration to this one have been found in Alexandria, Egypt and Tel Dor, Israel, attesting to the wide export of these ceramics throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin.

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