Bricks with a palmette motif

Bricks with a palmette motif

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These brick fragments were once part of the extensive polychrome wall decoration of the palace complex at Susa (built ca. 521-ca. 360 B.C.), the ancient city revived in the Achaemenid period. Glazed bricks and tiles with colorful motifs had been widely used at Babylon, the conquered royal city in Mesopotamia, and could have served as a model for the Achaemenids at Susa.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bricks with a palmette motifBricks with a palmette motifBricks with a palmette motifBricks with a palmette motifBricks with a palmette motif

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.