Handle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is an ivory cylinder made decorated with lines and zigzags. There is a hole at one end, suggesting it was originally a handle of some kind. Possibly it was the handle of a flywhisk. It was excavated at Surkh Dum, a settlement site in Luristan in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. It was found in a structure interpreted as a sanctuary and was thus probably an offering to a god.

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