Upper part of the marble stele (grave marker) of Kallidemos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Inscribed below the molding, Kallidemos, the son of Kalliades The back of the stele was cut down in modern times. The akroterion is decorated with a double palmette flanked by two half palmettes, all rising from spiral tendrils set in a bed of acanthus leaves. Bell-like flowers are suspended from the volutes of the central palmette, and a four-petaled flower is carved at the top. The simple shaft is decorated with double eight-petaled rosettes.

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