Ladle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is a small bronze ladle. It has a straight handle with several thin collars and a loop at the top. The handle widens at the bottom where it meets the hemispherical bowl. The ladle is now badly corroded, and the handle is broken into several pieces. The handle and bowl were probably cast separately. This ladle was excavated at Qasr-i Abu Nasr, near modern Shiraz, Iran, a small Sasanian town with a fortress. The ladle was found in the fortress in what was probably a storeroom. Several other implements for eating and drinking were recovered from the fortress, indicating that in addition to being a military installation it was also a residence, where soldiers, and perhaps also their families, lived. Presumably the ladle was used for serving rather than eating, much like its modern counterparts.

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art