Bronze belt clasp

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This type of personal ornament is characteristic of northern Greece, particularly Western Macedonia and Thessaly. The extraordinary delicacy and technical mastery in the execution of the triangles and concentric circles are especially noteworthy. A similar object was discovered in a woman’s tomb at Kozani (modern Greek province of Macedonia), placed on the body’s pelvis, indicating its function as belt clasp or hanger. The belt clasp 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), and mostly found in elite female graves and in Greek sanctuaries. Though an autonomous stylistic group, these objects present strong artistic connections with the neighboring Hallstatt culture of central Europe and were influenced by the Greek presence in the south (notably in Thessaly, and at Corinth).

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