
Glass rod
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Translucent yellowish green. Long rod, spirally twisted, tapering towards one end, and tooled into a biconical knob at the other. Broken at both ends, but otherwise complete; dulling, pitting, iridescence, and some patches of thick brown encrustation and weathering. The rod is unusually large and heavy, but it may be compared with the intact stirring rods also displayed in Gallery 171, Case 17.
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.