Earring

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This pair of exquisitely crafted gold earrings take the form of scroll-handled vases composed of hollow balls designed to resemble grape clusters and soldered together with granules. The vases themselves are soldered to large rings, and hollow cylindrical bases at their bottom tips each have four additional hollow balls soldered to them. Parthian wealth obtained through lucrative trade networks resulted in substantial patronage of the arts and luxury goods including jewelry. In addition to surviving examples, representations of earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and frontal bands appear in funerary portraits from Palmyra and statuary from Hatra.

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