Orthostat relief: lion attacking a deer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The powerful Neo-Assyrian Empire influenced the surrounding region culturally as well as politically. In the west a number of small but powerful Aramaean city-states acted as a barrier between Assyria and the Mediterranean coast. These have been called Neo-Hittite city-states because of their dynastic continuity and relation to the preceding Hittites of Anatolia. These rival states were gradually brought under the control of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by military conquest. Stone slabs carved in low relief had traditionally decorated the walls of the Neo-Hittite palaces and temples. This slab depicts a lion attacking a deer. It is one of many excavated at Tell Halaf, the ancient Aramaean site of Guzana, bearing images of fantastic creatures, hunting scenes, and ceremonial banquets. Carved in the late tenth or ninth century B.C., before the Assyrian conquests of the region, the reliefs appear to have embellished an earlier building and then been reused on the walls of the palace of King Kapara. This building was a special local form known as a bit hilani, composed of two parallel long rooms, one of which had a pillared entrance.

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