Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Black-figure Panathenaic Prize Amphora, 340-339 BC., Terracotta, Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum. More.

The collection of Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics spans some 5,000 years and three continents: Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. It includes works of vastly different media and scales, from coins, gems, and jewelry to bronzes, ivories, and painted pottery, to larger textiles, mosaics, and free-standing as well as architectural sculptures. This wide range of objects reflects major trends in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern art and offers precious glimpses of the norms and values, lives and beliefs of the societies and individuals that created and used them.

Carved in marble, the hero Meleager gazes at the world with an air of challenge after having killed the wild Kalydonian boar. This larger-than-life Roman statue was derived from a now lost work of the Greek sculptor Skopas. A Roman sarcophagus  shows Greeks in combat with the Eastern women warriors known as Amazons,  in what may to us represent an enduring battle of the sexes — or, perhaps, the clash between East and West.

On a much smaller scale, original Greek works may be admired in the signed coins of Kimon and Euainetos of Syracuse. The name of the painter who decorated the tall Panathenaic Amphora with images of the goddess Athena and two wrestlers is unknown. Thanks to inscriptions, however, we know that the vessel was made in the year 340/339 BC as a prize for athletic games held in Athens.

The sculptor of the Head of a Winged Genie, part of a wall relief from the throne room of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC), also remains anonymous. What mattered was not the fame of the artist but the protection that this expertly carved guardian figure offered the king. The Enthroned Lion-Headed Deities of bronze, once further enhanced with gold and dedicated at a religious site in ancient Egypt, still preserve an aura of sanctity.

Authority and power emanate from the larger-than-life statue of the Roman emperor Trajan (AD 98–117), whereas the bronze statuette of the Greek orator and statesman Demosthenes (384–322 BC) conveys firm resolve. Deified and forever young, the head of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) appears on the coins of his successors, with tousled hair and heroic features that resemble those of Meleager. The coins of Hellenistic rulers and of Roman and Byzantine emperors and empresses immortalize their official portraits, just as the Mummy Portrait of a Woman with Earrings preserves the memory of a well-to-do woman from Roman Egypt.

Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art & Numismatics

Susanne Ebbinghaus, George M.A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art
Amy Brauer, Diane Heath Beever Associate Curator of Ancient Art
Carmen Arnold-Biucchi, Damarete Curator of Ancient Coins
Karen Manning, curatorial assistant