Marble statuette of Kybele

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Based on a gold and ivory statue by the Greek sculptor Pheidias or Agorakritos of the late 5th century B.C. The cult of Kybele, the mother goddess of Anatolia, had been brought to Athens by the fifth century B.C. A statue of the enthroned goddess accompanied by lions and holding a cymbal stood in the Metroon, a prominent building in the Agora–the marketplace–of Athens. Over one hundred small marble copies such as this have been found in the Agora.

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