These are the 4 artifacts smashed at the DMA by an intruder

Police on Wednesday arrested a 21-year-old man who broke into the Dallas Museum of Art and caused significant damage to property including artwork.

Brian Hernandez approached the museum’s glass entrance doors with a metal chair at about 9:40 p.m. and began destroying objects once inside, police said. Museums officials called it an “isolated incident perpetrated by one individual acting alone,” and said his “intent was not theft.”

On Thursday, museum officials began assessing the damage. Four ceramic items, described below, were smashed and “less than a dozen smaller pieces” that shared display cases with them “might have suffered minor damages,” DMA director Agustín Arteaga said in a statement.

Ancient Greek vase

Date: last quarter of 6th century B.C.

Greek hero Achilles faces off with Prince Memnon of Ethiopia in a scene from the Trojan War depicted on this amphora, a type of Greek container with a characteristic shape used for storage. Measuring a foot and a half tall, it was discovered in an Etruscan tomb north of Rome. It shattered into pieces when Hernandez hit the display case containing it with a metal stool, police said.

Ancient Greek box

Date: last half of the 5th century B.C.

This small pyxis — a box made for holding jewelry, incense, medicine and cosmetics — shows a domestic scene of women interacting in the gynaikeia or women’s quarters. It broke into pieces along with the amphora when Hernandez shattered the display case holding them both.

Ancient Greek drinking cup

Date: 550-530 B.C.

Wineglasses have evolved a bit in the past 2,500 years, so don’t worry if you don’t quite recognize this one. The outside of this kylix, the standard Greek vessel for wine drinking, features Hercules fighting the Nemean lion, a mythical beast with fur impervious to human weapons. It rested in a separate display case that Hernandez also shattered, destroying the object along with it.

Caddo alligator gar effigy bottle

Date: 2018

Artist Chase Kahwinhut Earles, a member of the Caddo Nation, makes pottery using ancestral techniques, digging clay himself from riverbanks, usually the Red River, and mixing it with crushed freshwater mussel shell to strengthen it, he told the DMA in 2020 shortly after it acquired this work from him. He completed the piece in 2018. Hernandez used a hand sanitizer stand to break open the display case containing it, police said. He then grabbed the 3 ½ foot-long item and threw it to the ground, shattering it.