Bronze cinerary urn with lid

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Large hammered-bronze urns, often with solid-cast figures on the lid, were frequently used for cremated remains in Etruscan dominated Campania. Several examples have been found at Capua, that region's major city, and they were likely produced there from the late sixth to the mid-fifth century B.C. The statuettes added to the lid of this elaborately incised urn show a large nude diskos thrower surrounded by four Scythian archers mounted on rearing horses. On the underside of the urn a two-letter inscription is engraved on the attached foot ring. It comprises two Etruscan characters: a khi (which looks like a V with a line in the center), and a V. These two characters probably indicate the number 55. The khi is in a late Etruscan letter form that is appropriate for the urn's date. The significance of the numeral remains unclear.

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