Bead
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This bead has a faceted square face and is made of light blue clear glass, covered with a pearly iridescence. Glass beads were popular across the larger region during the Sasanian period. Various types of beads and styles were manufactured from the Rome to Egypt. At Ctesiphon there is evidence for local manufacture of glass objects from the Italian excavations at the site of Choche. The city of Ctesiphon was located on the east bank of the Tigris River, 20 miles (32 km) south of modern Baghdad in Iraq. It flourished for more than 800 years as the capital of the Parthians and the Sasanians, the last two dynasties to rule the ancient Near East before the Islamic conquest in the seventh century. Systematic excavations in the Ctesiphon area were undertaken by an expedition in 1928–29 sponsored by the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft). The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, undertook a joint expedition for one season in 1931–32. Several excavations were conducted, including at the main palace (Taq-i Kisra), in a small fortified area south of the palace at Tell Dheheb, at multiple houses at the mounds of Ma’aridh, and at additional houses at a small mound called Umm ez-Za’tir. Over the course of the excavations in the Ctesiphon area, six houses from a series of small mounds called el Ma’aridh were excavated. These houses follow typical Sasanian design with a mix of square and elongated rooms. Ma’aridh II is a large house that is entered through a small entry way rather than directly from the street. The house is divided into a utilitarian, or service, sector on the eastern side of the building, and a monumental decorated space to the west of the entryway. The western rooms were decorated with pillars, a double horseshoe archway, and stucco reliefs. A long barrel vaulted arched room, 19 meters in length, was probably the most important room of the house. It was entered through a smaller room with four pillars. This large house, with the excavated portion revealing more than 1800 square meters, represents an elite household.
Ancient Near Eastern Art
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.