Glass beaker with cut decoration

Glass beaker with cut decoration

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale blue. Vertical rim, cracked-off and ground flat, with bulge below; conical body with side tapering gently downwards; solid projecting knob on bottom. Wheel-abraded decoration comprising at top two broad horizontal bands of lines, enclosing Greek letters with a diagonal band of short lines marking the beginning and/or end of the inscription; at center, a broad frieze containing two bunches of stylized grapes suspended from a T bar and flanked by wavy ribbons, alternating around side with two eight-armed stars; below, two bands of two horizontal lines flanking a band of short diagonal lines. Intact; a few bubbles; faint iridescent weathering, with slight soil encrustation at bottom of interior. The Greek inscription PIE ZHCHC (Drink [so that] you may live [well]) is an exhortation commonly found on both pottery and glass vessels. It probably echoes the kind of toast that would have been given at a drinking or dinner party. This beaker was likely made and decorated at a workshop in Syria, demonstrating that glassmakers (vitrarii) worked closely with glass cutters (diatretarii) in the production of glass tableware.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.