Plaque fragment: kneeling lion-headed figure
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This figure belongs to a group of carved ivories, mostly furniture elements, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia. Most of the ivories depict imagery borrowed and transformed from Egyptian sources, such as the hybrid creature shown here who combines human and lion features. In Egypt, representations of lioness goddesses appeared as early as the Old Kingdom. This creature, with its kneeling posture and closed mouth, indicated by a diagonal groove, does not appear menacing. Its identity is mysterious, but it appears to have symbolized a benevolent force. The plaque has attachment holes at top and bottom, and probably was used to decorate a piece of furniture. Its overall gray color indicates that the object was exposed to considerable heat, perhaps during the destruction of the palace. Gilding is preserved not only on areas such as the border of the long open kilt, the mane, and the eyes, but along the edges of the mane and the inner line of the bent left arm, which may indicate that much of the surface was originally covered in gold leaf. The pupil of the eye was hollowed to receive an inlay, now missing. The mane is stylized to resemble a wig rather than tufts of animal fur. The left arm is bent at the elbow, with the fist held to the chest, while the right grasps a flowering plant stem. The clearly human torso shows no indication of gender. The lower body is depicted kneeling, with one leg exposed and the other covered by the long kilt. A nearly identical plaque, in which the figure faces left, is also in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection (36.70.14, 37.413.4). Both plaques have been reconstructed from two halves, broken at the waist; in this example, the upper half is numbered 37.143.3 and the lower half 36.70.15.
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.