Cone-shaped vase with geometric decoration
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This cone-shaped pot comes from a site near Persepolis called Tall-i Bakun A. Excavations conducted at the site in 1932 uncovered large amounts of prehistoric pottery, much of it in the form of complete, undamaged vessels still in place in storerooms, suggesting that the village was hastily abandoned in the ancient past. Like much of the pottery from Iran in the Chalcolithic Period (ca. 5500-3000 B.C.), ceramics from Tall-i Bakun A are remarkably varied in both form and decoration, attesting to the skill and creativity of the artisans in this early period. Conical vessels such as this one are among the most finely made, with almost eggshell-thin walls and crisply painted geometric decoration. A group of conical cups was stored in one room at the site with some nested in each other, suggesting they were used as a set. The sharply tapered end would not allow it to stand and hold liquid at the same time, so it must have been held while in use. Other remarkable finds from Tall-i Bakun A include stone stamp seals and lumps of clay that had been impressed with stamp seals, suggesting that the seals were not only personal objects but also administrative tools. In other words, they were used to indicate ownership of commodities stored within containers, by sealing the containers with lumps of clay and marking those clay lumps with a stamp seal impression.
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.