Serpentine blossom bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

High shouldered blossom bowl carved with ribs and grooves. Minoan artists crafted vessels from a variety of stones using chisels, hammers, and copper-alloy saws. Finer tools like copper drills with abrasives were employed to hollow out their interiors. These vessels were durable versions of standard terracotta and metal forms, made with such high quality that they were exported throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Stoneware has been found in settlements, cemeteries, and sanctuaries alike; the smallest examples were likely votive offerings. Particularly popular and long-lived forms are bird’s-nest (see 26.31.434 for example) and blossom bowls (such as this one), the latter perhaps imitating Egyptian lotus flowers in bloom. Both likely served as containers for ointments.

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