Bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This dish is decorated with a dark brownish paint in three concentric rings. The band around the rim is the widest, while the inner ring is ornamented with three groups of double half-moons in solid paint facing the center of the dish. The dark painted pale pottery characteristic of the Ubaid period has been found throughout Mesopotamia. It originated in the south, and then spread north and west. Over time the designs changed, which helps archaeologists to date sites where it is found. The whole sequence of Ubaid pottery was excavated at the southern Mesopotamian site of Eridu, where this bowl was discovered in a grave (Ubaid Cemetery, Grave 136). Toward the end of the Ubaid period in the south, pottery was less skillfully painted but some of the grave pottery, like this one, has simple but bold and effective designs.

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