Metropolitan Museum V

Mortar and Pestle Limestone Syria Neolithic period, late 8th millennium BC Accession # 1985.356.1, .7 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Bactrian Camel Copper alloy Central Asia (Bactria-Margiana) Late 3rd-early 2nd millennium BC Accession # 53.117.1 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Vessel Period: Middle Chalcolithic Date: ca. 5600–5400 B.C. Geography: Southwestern Anatolia Culture: Hacilar Medium: Ceramic, paint Dimensions: 4.41 in. (11.2 cm) Classification: Ceramics-Vessel Credit Line: Gift of Burton Y. Berry, 1964 Accession Number: 64.286.3 Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/3000...

Vessel in the Form of a Boar Ceramic, paint Southwestern Iran Proto-Elamite period, 3100-2900 BC Accession # 1979.71 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Administrative tablet: record of quantities of wheat and barley Clay Mesopotamia, probably Uruk Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III script), 3100-2900 BC Accession # 1988.433.2 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Administrative tablet: record of quantities of wheat and barley Clay Mesopotamia, probably Uruk Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III script), 3100-2900 BC Accession # 1988.433.2 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Administrative tablet with cylinder seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars, 3100–2900 b.c.; Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III script) Mesopotamia Clay H. 2 in. (5.3 cm) Purchase, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Gift, 1988 (1988.433.1) In about 3300 B.C., writing was invented in Mesopotamia, perhaps in the city of Uruk, where the earliest inscribed clay tablets have been found in abundance. This was not an isolated development but occurred during a period of profound transformation in politics, the economy, and representational art. During the Uruk period of the fourth millennium B.C., the first Mesopotamian cities were settled, the first kings were crowned, and a range of goods—from ceramic vessels to textiles—were mass-produced in state workshops. Early writing was used primarily as a means of recording and storing economic information, but from the beginning a significant component of the written tradition consisted of lists of words and names that scribes needed to know in order to keep their accounts. Signs were drawn with a reed stylus on pillow-shaped tablets, most of which were only a few inches wide. The stylus left small marks in the clay which we call cuneiform, or wedge-shaped, writing. This tablet most likely documents grain distributed by a large temple, although the absence of verbs in early texts makes them difficult to interpret with certainty. The seal impression depicts a male figure guiding two dogs on a leash and hunting or herding boars in a marsh environment. Text from: www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1988.433.1

Fragment of a Vessel with a Bird of Prey Attacking a Crouched Animal in Relief Limestone Southern Mesopotamia Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr period, 3300-2900 BC Accession Number: 41.160.203 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Title: Cuneiform tablet: record of rations of beer, bread, oil, and onions for messengers Period: Ur III Date: ca. 2028 B.C. Geography: Mesopotamia, Umma (modern Jokha) Medium: Clay Dimensions: 1 3/16 x 1 1/8 x 1/2 in. (3 x 2.8 x 1.2 cm) Classification: Clay-Tablets, Inscribed Credit Line: Gift of Archbishop Elias F. Shaheen, 1985 Accession Number: 1985.180.2 Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/ancien...

Fragment of a Bowl with a Frieze of Bulls in Relief Steatite with chlorite Southern Mesopotamia Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr period, 3300-2900 BC Accession # 50.218 Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Title: Standing female figure wearing a strap and a necklace Period: Bronze Age Date: 3rd–2nd millennium B.C. Geography: Southwestern Arabia Medium: Sandstone, quartzite Dimensions: H. 27 cm, W. 14.3 cm, D. 14.3 cm Classification: Stone-Sculpture Credit Line: Purchase, Fletcher, Louis V. Bell, and Rogers Funds, and The Tokyo Shimbun and Friends of Inanna Gifts, 1998 Accession Number: 1998.380 Description: This sculpture is one of a group of statues associated with the South Arabian Bronze Age. It comes at the beginning of a figural tradition characterized by extreme simplification and symbolic strength. Represented is a standing female with a role of fat and deep groove emphasizing the belly and a clearly indicated pubic triangle. Her massive body is contained within a quadrangular space. The legs look truncated but the toes, like the hands and fingers, are indicated by incisions. She wears a strap across her body and a necklace. Subject and style invite comparison with Near Eastern and Aegean Neolithic statuary and with much later South Arabian statuary of the second century B.C. In early Anatolia and Greece—as in late Paleolithic Europe—nude females were dynamic, with curved, exaggeraged breasts, belly, and buttocks. By contrast, the frontal, profile, and back planes of the South Arabian sculpture are separated, emphasizing abstraction and containment within a blocklike form—features that characterize figural art of the region more than two thousand years later. Other similar statues were found near western highland settlements and the inner Hadramawt area. A few males appear ithyphallic, suggesting that these human or divine images were used in fertility rituals. Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/ancien...

Fragment of a Trough with a Nude Male Figure in Relief Alabaster (gypsum) Southern Mesopotamia Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr period, 3300-2900 BC Accession # 1983.527 Two categories of persons appear nude in early Mesopotamian art: humiliated prisoners and priests in a state of cultic purity. Here a priest holds a rope, most likely leading an animal offering to the temple. Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.

Object with a handle, perhaps a weight; palm trees and guilloche Period: Early Bronze Age Date: ca. mid- to late 3rd millennium B.C. Geography: Persian Gulf region or southern Iran Medium: Chlorite schist Dimensions: H. 22.9 cm; W. 25.1 cm; D. 4.6 cm Classification: Stone-Implement Credit Line: Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989 Accession Number: 1989.281.40 Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/3000...

Chlorite vase with overlapping pattern and three bands of palm trees, ca. 2700–2350 b.c. Gulf region or southern Iran Chlorite H. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm) Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.106) Vessels carved of a gray-green stone in what is called the "Intercultural Style" were made in the greater Gulf area as well as in southern Iran. At the site of Tepe Yahya in Iran, workshops were found with vessels and the raw materials—chlorite or steatite—for their manufacture, dating to the mid-third millennium B.C. The stones were available in the nearby hills. Fragments of containers were also found at sites in the Gulf area. Vessels decorated in this style were found across the ancient Near East from Syria to the Indus Valley, evidence of the flourishing long-distance trade of the times. This piece has a tall shape with flaring rim and is carved in alternating bands of an overlapping mountainlike pattern and date palm trees. The repertoire of motifs of the "Intercultural Style" includes vegetal, architectural, and abstract or naturalistic representations of people and animals. Many excavated examples have been found in palaces and temples or in graves of the privileged classes in major urban centers, including Sumerian (Early Dynastic) Mesopotamia. The vessels may also have been valuable for their contents. Text from: www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/17.190.106

Bowl Calcite Room 193, level VIIB Early Dynastic IIIa, 2600-2500 BC Accession # 62.70.10 Cuneiform inscription in Sumerian: "For Inanna, Aka-Enlil, the chief merchant, son of Heti, dedicated [this bowl]" Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.