Terracotta architectural tile

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This brightly painted, mold-made tile is one of many that have been excavated at Sardis, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, in southern Turkey. In places like Lydia and southern Italy, where native stone was scarce or of poor quality, terracotta served as a substitute for stone in architecture. Tiles such as this one would have originally decorated the rooflines and outer walls of houses and civic buildings. Being both decorative and functional, some are equipped with a protruding spout that helped drain water from the eaves.

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