Jug

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This jug has a globular body, a wide mouth, and a loop handle at the shoulder. The rim is broken off in several places. It is made of a buff clay with painted red crosshatching. It may have been made by hand rather than on a potter’s wheel. It was excavated at Khatunban, a cemetery site in Luristan in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. It is often thought that the inhabitants of Luristan in this period were pastoral nomads, who moved with their herds from the high valleys of the Zagros during the summer to lowland pastures in the winter. This theory arises from the dearth of evidence for settlements, and the occurrence of isolated cemetery sites, such as Khatunban. At the same time, the infrastructure necessary for bronze working, an important industry in Luristan, suggests that some sedentary settlements must have existed. In all likelihood these settlements were not located on mounds, but at lower elevations near water sources where agriculture could be practiced.

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