Marble lid of a cinerary chest

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The lid is fashioned to look like the roof of a barrel-vaulted building with acroteria at the corners in the form of theatrical masks and palmettes. The front panel is inscribed in Latin: “To the spirits of the dead, [of] Sextus Flavius Pancarpus, who lived 67 years.” Despite the fact that the inscription mentions only a man, the lunettes at the sides show both male (globe and box of scrolls) and female (mirror and spindle) attributes, indicating that the chest also may have contained the remains of Pancarpus’ wife.

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