Seal ring: horned animals flanking a tree

Seal ring: horned animals flanking a tree

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is a bronze ring with an intaglio image carved on it. The image shows a stylized plant with cone-shaped fronds flanked by two horned creatures. Behind each creature is a rosette, and above them is a cuneiform inscription reading "dingir mesh tuk" in Sumerian – part of a prayer. This ring was excavated at Surkh Dum, a settlement site in Luristan in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran It was part of a large hoard of objects buried beneath a doorjamb in a structure interpreted as a sanctuary; thus the objects were probably offerings made for a god. In all likelihood the ring was used a seal before being deposited in the sanctuary.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seal ring: horned animals flanking a treeSeal ring: horned animals flanking a treeSeal ring: horned animals flanking a treeSeal ring: horned animals flanking a treeSeal ring: horned animals flanking a tree

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.