Glass aryballos (oil bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale green with blue tinge; handles in same color. Thick everted rim, folded over, in, and down, forming restriction to mouth; cylindrical neck; narrow horizontal shoulder; globular body; slightly concave bottom with small pontil mark off-center; two ring handles attached in a large, thick pad to top of body, across shoulder, and up neck. Two mold seams visible on sides of body. The underside of the rim is decorated with radiating tooled indents; on body, thirteen rows of small hollow lozenges and a series of vertical raised lines, extending from bottom row of lozenges on undercurve. Broken, with one third of rim and part of neck and one handle missing, cracks in body, and one deep chip in lower side; some bubbles and striations; dulling, faint iridescence, and slight soil encrustation on exterior, iridescent weathering on interior, which is largely filled with a loose ball of soil.

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