Gold strap necklace with seedlike pendants

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gold strap necklace with seed-like pendants, part of the Madytos Jewelry. This group of jewelry is said to have come from a tomb at Madytos on the European side of the Hellespont. The gold diadem is richly worked in repousse with an elaborate floral pattern. Dionysos, the god of wine, and his wife, Ariadne, sit in the center; muses playing musical instruments perch among the vines and along the sides. The tiny figure of a must playing a lyre also appears just above the crescent form on each of the boat-shaped earrings. The seedlike pendants of the earrings are identical to those on the elaborate necklace.

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