Terracotta loutrophoros (ceremonial vase for water)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Prothesis (laying out of the dead); below, horsemen On the neck, mourners Loutrophoroi were used to fetch water for the bridal bath and for certain funerary rites. This vase may have been used in rituals at the grave, for it was made with no bottom so that offerings poured into it could reach the dead under ground. It is decorated with scenes of the ceremonies that preceded burial. On the shoulder of the vase, a dead youth lies on a high couch, surrounded by grieving women–his relatives and perhaps professional mourners. Their hair has been cut short as a sign of mourning, and they make the traditional gestures of lamentation. Their open mouths indicate that they are singing a funeral song. On either side, men walk in procession with their right arms raised and their mouths open, also in funeral lament. Below, horsemen similarly gesture with their arms. Above, on the neck, is another group of mourning women, one holding a loutrophoros.

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