Pin
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This bronze pinhead is cubical with obliquely cut corners and rounded incisions. Possibly it is meant to represent fruit, such as pomegranate. It was excavated at Qumish, an Iron Age cemetery in Luristan in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. Such pins were probably used to fasten clothing and as objects of adornment in their own right.
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.