Metropolitan Museum (New York)

[Batavian]

Not sure whether museum reviews are also allowed on this board but I've recently been on holiday to New York and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I took many pictures. The museum was so huge that I had to skip entire halls and still wasn't finished at the end of the day. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Medieval... You name it and they have it. And then I mean entire halls full of one of these particular subjects... I've made a small selection of pictures to share with you guys, hope you'll like it.


First are some Greek, Roman and other helmets and equipment, I especially like the Corinthian helmet with the serpent eyebrows. Some of these helmets seem to have attachment loops to fix a crest on.

By the way, anyone knows why the tips of some Greek helmets (near the cheeks) are bent outwards? And what purpose served the rivets/rivet holes that run along the edges of some Corinthian helmets?

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Early Medieval stuff, mainly Viking.

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Equipment from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance period.

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Tibetan harness and horse armour.

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Japanese equipment. Very impressive!

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The museum didn't have much Roman military equipment, except for some Coolus type helmets. Remarkably litle for such a huge museum actually. There were many Roman statues and other items though. Lots of Greek stuff too, including military. And the Egyptian halls were really neat too, they even had a complete temple over there. Highly recommended!

[Batavian]

[attachment:10]C:\\fakepath\\P5310379.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:11]C:\\fakepath\\P5310386.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:12]C:\\fakepath\\P5310388.jpg[/attachment]

Early Medieval stuff, mainly Viking.

[attachment:13]C:\\fakepath\\P5310423.jpg[/attachment]

Equipment from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance period.

[attachment:14]C:\\fakepath\\P5310425.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:15]C:\\fakepath\\P5310427.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:16]C:\\fakepath\\P5310429.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:17]C:\\fakepath\\P5310435.jpg[/attachment]

Tibetan harness and horse armour.

[attachment:18]C:\\fakepath\\P5310443.jpg[/attachment]

Japanese equipment. Very impressive!

[attachment:19]C:\\fakepath\\P5310455.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:20]C:\\fakepath\\P5310458.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:21]C:\\fakepath\\P5310463.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment:22]C:\\fakepath\\P5310469.jpg[/attachment]


The museum didn't have much Roman military equipment, except for some Coolus type helmets. Remarkably litle for such a huge museum actually. There were many Roman statues and other items though. Lots of Greek stuff too, including military. And the Egyptian halls were really neat too, they even had a complete temple over there. Highly recommended!

[Batavian]

Eerm, some of the pictures are missing and the rest is not showing (but can be found amongst "attachments" at the bottom of the first post), but at least it'll give you an idea about what the museum is like.

[Jona Lendering]

Thanks. It's indeed a splendid place, they say. It's pretty high on my wish list.

[Epictetus]

On topic: Those are splendid photographs. Thanks for sharing.

Off topic: When I clicked on the attachments they appeared in a slide show. I don't remember that happening before. Is that feature part of the new website? I like it.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Yes,it is a feature of the new RAT. It happens some times, but not always, and i don't know why!

The bending of the cheek guards of the corinthian helmets is believed to be a ritual "killing" of the helmets. They had been dedicated to a sanctuary and thus now belonged to the god,so they had to be made unuseful for men. The same happened with the killing of swords that they bent around the vase with the ashes of the warrior (8th century bc) or with coins,where they drilled a small hole on the coin,so if someone stole a sanctuary,he couldn't use the money he stole legally.

The holes around the edge of early helmets served of course to secure the linning. In the Greek re-enactment section i offered an interpretation of how this might have worked.
Later helmets usually had the linning glued on,but the distinction early/late isn't very accurate,because even though in the mid 5th century there were almost no helmets with stitched or riveted linning, in the 6th century there were some helmets with glued linning.
Khaire
Giannis

PS. Batavian, do you have a close-up photo of the greaves?

[Batavian]

Thanks!

Sorry for the late reply: I'm having computer problems so I can't be online as regularly as I normally am. :oops:

PS. Batavian, do you have a close-up photo of the greaves?

Yes and I found a picture of another pair of greaves too:

[attachment=1158]Greaves.JPG[/attachment]

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Thank you very much! Much appreciated!
Khaire
Giannis