Bowl fragment with the head of a ram

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This bowl fragment features the head of a stylized ram. The ram has a pointed snout, lentoid eyes with incised pupils, and horns with incised lines that form a heart shape around the ram’s face. The fragment is made of bitumen, an asphalt-like substance that occurs naturally in the Near East. Mixed with ground calcite and quartz it forms a hard, gray substance which can be shaped like clay. This fragment was excavated at Susa in southwestern Iran, the capital of the ancient Elamite kingdom. While bitumen was used elsewhere in the Near East, beginning in the third millennium BCE the Elamites developed an especially sophisticated recipe for bitumen compound, which they used to make a range of vessels, most decorated with animal foreparts, as well as other objects, a practice which continued into the first millennium BCE.

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