Glass whorl or bead

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent light green; trails in opaque white. Flattened biconical shape; vertical hole with rounded edge of one side and rough lip on the other. Three separate trails applied spirally and marvered into surface: on one side, spiral tooled into large scallop pattern of six loops; on the other, one trail around outer edge as narrow spiral tooled into thirteen swags, and the other tooled into a scallop pattern of four loops. Intact; slight pitting and dulling, and faint iridescent weathering.

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