Bi-conical glass bead

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Semi-opaque dark blue, appearing almost black; additions in opaque yellow, white, and dark blue. Large, biconical shape with vertical hole, wide at one end with slightly flaring, rounded edge, and narrow at other, rounded end. Three horizontal yellow trails, comprising one wound around rounded end and one around center of bead, both marvered, and the third left in relief around flaring end; in spaces between trails two sets of four evenly-spaced stratified large blobs. One blob missing, and cracked gaps around flaring end; dulling and faint creamy iridescent weathering. Cylindrical; blue, with blue drops.

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