Silver stemless cup

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1895 the tomb of a Gallic warrior was excavated in a necropolis at Montefortino, about thirty miles west of Ancona in central Italy. The cemetery is that of Gauls who in the fourth century B.C. began to invade central Italy and to stage raids as far south as Apulia. The tomb contained iron weapons, bronze and terracotta vessels, and also a gold ring and five silver vessels that must have been brought as loot from another part of Italy. The hoard includes a silver jug (08.258.51), a silver bowl with swinging handles (08.258.50), a pair of stemless silver cups decorated on the inside with a complex floral pattern (08.258.52–.53), and a silver kyathos (cup-shaped ladle) with a handle that terminates in a duck's head (08.258.54).

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