Classical Antiquities

The Classical Antiquities Exhibition. Photo: Ann Christine Eek, © KHM

The Classical Antiquities exhibition presents a selection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman artefacts. The various periods are represented in individual display cases, which are organized in chronological order.

The Greek display cases contain small Corinthian pots from the 8th-6th centuries BC, small pots from the 8th century BC from Heinrich Schliemann's excavations in Dipylon in Athens, and painted oil pots from Attica from the 5th-4th century BC. Also on display are drinking goblets, a kylix (drinking cup), a lekanis (lidded bowl) and a small drinking cup for a child, in the characteristic Attic black-glazed pottery of the 5th century BC, and a fish plate of a type that was mass-produced in Campania and was very popular in southern Italy starting in the 4th century BC. A painted wine or oil vessel, pelike, from Apulia in southern Italy depicts young men racing and a pair of lovers. A statuette from Tanagra, in Boiotia, is placed together with these vessels. It shows a young woman, and represents a type of popular, decorative object that was common from the 4th century BC. The figure retains traces of colour, indicating that it had been painted.

The Etruscan element of the exhibition consists of pottery and metal objects dating from the 7th to the 1st century BC, including terracotta satyr heads, women bearing Etruscan headgear and a head adorned with a diadem. Other heads portray Medusa and a small boy. Diana appears together with a deer in a relief, and fragments of other reliefs show a running woman and a sitting man, a woman's face, a detail of a body part, plant ornamentation, a young man holding a crooked staff, and a fragment of a foot. The characteristic Etruscan Bucchero ware, which originated in the 7th century BC, is represented by a fragment from the base of a goblet in the form of a winged female figure as well as several vases. Bucchero pottery was meticulously worked and often painstakingly decorated with animal heads on the lugs and handles. These Etruscan pots are displayed alongside later, imported Greek and Roman pottery. The presence of Greek and Roman pottery in Etruscan areas indicates that cultural exchanges existed even then. The Etruscan display case also contains lamps, cups and perfume bottles, as well as various bronze objects such as parts of candelabras, mirrors, buckles, bracelets, pendants, ornamented mountings, barbers' knives, hooks and an oval brooch with an inlaid Egyptian scarab made of faience.

The Roman display case holds glass, oil lamps and a portrait. The antiquities collection has a broad selection of Roman glass with a wide variety of objects from a number of tombs. Most of the objects come from a burial site in Jaffa, Palestine. Glass was mass-produced in Palestine and Syria starting in the 2nd century AD. In the Roman world in this period glass became more common as an alternative to pottery for use as tableware. Only a small selection is shown, consisting of ointment pots, perfume pots and bottles, and jars for red and black cosmetics. The lamps shown represent only a small portion of the collection of over 250 items, produced from approximately 1000 BC to 500 AD. However, most of the lamps are Roman, and stem from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, from Israel and Palestine. Some of these can be seen in the Roman display case. A few of them are decorated with portrayals of a flying Cupid and the death of Aktaion. Both motifs show scenes from Greek-Roman mythology. The most striking object in the Roman display is a marble portrait of superior artistic and technical quality, from the time of Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD),. The portrait is of a young boy with a braid bound across his head, which shows that he belonged to an Eastern cult.

A number of freestanding objects are placed around the display cases. A large, black-painted Attic amphora from around 490-480 BC, decorated with lotus flowers and palmettes, resembles the vases that were given to the winners of the Panathenaic Games. Just as a cup would be awarded to modern-day winners of a sporting event. A Roman copy of a Greek Herm of the 4th century BC shows the tragedian Sophocles, who lived towards the end of the 5th century BC. A scaled-down Roman version of a Greek head from around 150 BC shows a muse, and was probably part of a group of Roman sculptures that had been inspired by Greek statues.