Attic Funerary Relief of Mynno (c. 430-400 BCE)
An Attic funerary relief dedicated to Mynno, now in the Altes Museum in Berlin, turns a seemingly intimate domestic scene into an image of death, memory, and social identity.
Greece
Objects from the cradle of Western civilization, featuring pottery, sculptures, and other creations from Ancient Greece. These artifacts highlight the Greeks’ contributions to art, philosophy, and democracy during their golden age.
Gigantomachy Frieze, Delphi (530–525 BCE)
This frieze at Delphi is one of the most vivid surviving images of divine combat from ancient Greece. Carved around 530–525 BCE, it shows the Gigantomachy, the mythic battle in which the Olympian gods confront the Giants.
The Bassai Frieze (420–400 BCE)
High in the mountains of Arcadia, far from the great urban centers of classical Greece, the Bassai Frieze once unfolded inside the Temple of Apollo Epikourios as a ring of marble violence, heroism, and divine order.
Enthroned Cybele Statuette (c.400-300 BCE)
Seated on a throne and holding a feline companion, Cybele appears not as an ordinary woman but as a divine presence marked by authority, protection, and command over the natural world.
Phi-type Female Figurine (c.1300-1200 BCE)
The figure is a so-called Phi-type, named after the resemblance of its silhouette to the Greek letter Φ, and it offers a revealing glimpse into how femininity, care, and cult practice could be expressed in the Mycenaean world.
Enthroned Plank Idol (c.650 BCE)
This ceramic plank idol was made in Boeotia in the middle of the 6th century BC, though its type reaches back to traditions formed after the middle of the 7th century BC.
Crowned Figurine (1st to 3rd century CE)
The high and elaborate headdress and crown is unlikely to be merely fashionable adornment. It most probably represents a mural crown, the crown of city walls and towers, which in the Greek and Roman world marked a female figure as divine.
Black-Figure Vessel for Incense (c.600-400 BCE)
This small black-figure incense vessel opens onto a world in which religion was experienced through smoke, fragrance, and image as much as through words or gesture.
The Omphalos of Delphi (19th-20th century CE)
This Omphalos stands at the center of the earth, the point where Zeus marked the world’s navel and where Apollo’s oracle gave voice to divine knowledge.
Woman Seated on a Bench (c.400-201 BCE)
Woman Seated on a Bench was created around the fourth to third century BCE, in the period between the late Classical and Hellenistic ages. This was a moment when small terracotta figures became especially popular across the Greek world.
Female Figure Arms Folded (2700-2400 BCE)
One of the most interesting things about Cycladic female figures is the gap between how they were seen then and how they are often seen now. Modern viewers frequently view them as if they were almost modern sculptures.
Grave Stele (c. 50 BCE)
This marble grave stele from southern Anatolia stands as an example of Hellenistic funerary art, combining architectural form, figural narrative, inscription, and symbolic imagery into a single, highly sophisticated monument.