Terracotta chariot krater

Terracotta chariot krater

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the fourteenth century B.C. broad and deep-bodied kraters, often decorated with complex pictorial scenes, were produced in Greece, particularly in the Argolid and in Cyprus. A great number of these works came to light on Cyprus, and they were often attributed to artists working in a Cypro-Mycenaean idiom. Evidence had increasingly indicated that trade between the Argolid and Cyprus was active and that the pictorial vases were a major commodity made on the mainland and traded eastward, probably for their contents as well as the ware itself. Scientific tests have corroborated these findings. Recent analyses have shown that this chariot krater came from a well-attested workshop in the vicinity of Mycenae and Berbati. The chariot was an important motif in art from the Greek mainland; its frequency on Mycenaean pictorial vases has characterized an entire subgroup. These vases were probably connected with funerary practices, and, in some regions, they may have served as sarcophagi. The occupants of the chariots may be the deceased, while the ancillary figures may be deities or participants in funerary observances.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.