Furniture element: kneeling male figure

Furniture element: kneeling male figure

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fragment belongs to a group of carved ivories, mostly furniture elements, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia. Carved in the round, the piece shows a kneeling figure who is missing his head. He wears a long kilt belted at the waist, with traces of gilding remaining on the belt. His bare chest and arms are softly modeled, with a navel defined just above the belt. His feet are visible emerging from his kilt when seen from the back and sides. The figure has attachment holes drilled in its flat base, and likely adorned a piece of furniture. The pink staining of this piece indicates that iron oxides are present on the surface, although it is not known whether this was a deliberate decorative treatment, or a result of contact with the soil in which this and other pieces of carved ivory from Acemhöyük were buried.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.