Bronze armlet
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
A massive, solid armlet of a well-known type, with overlapping and slightly tapering ends, carinated and richly decorated on the outside, undecorated, slightly concave and relatively smooth on the inside. The external surface is adorned with engraved linear designs (hatched lozenges and triangles) and punched circular patterns. The flat ends flare out and bear a pattern of dice (five punched spots). The heavy armlet belongs to the group of the so-called Macedonian bronzes, a wide range of bronze ornaments made in the northwest Aegean and south-central Balkans (late 8th-early 5th c. BCE), mostly found in elite female tombs. Though an autonomous stylistic group, Macedonian bronzes present strong artistic connections with the neighboring Hallstatt culture of central Europe and were influenced by the Greek presence in the south (notably Thessaly and Corinth). In Tomb 111 of Milci-Gevgelija (southeast of the Republic of North Macedonia), a woman’s skeleton was still wearing a pair of similar armlets (of the Janjevo Type) above each elbow. The type was also widely distributed from the Northern Balkans to the Illyrian coast, and in Greek sanctuaries, such as Olympia, Sparta, Dodona, and Delphi.
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.