Jar with winged bulls flanking palmettes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glazing and glassmaking have a long history in the ancient Near East. A glaze is a layer of glass over a ceramic body. The first objects with a glazed surface were small beads and amulets made of faience, dating to the Ubaid period of the mid-sixth millennium B.C. While isolated examples of true glass beads have been found in contexts of the third millennium B.C., glass was produced on a large scale for the first time around 1600 B.C., perhaps in the Mitanni state of northern Mesopotamia. This large jar—glazed in blue, brown, yellow, white, and black—represents an advanced glazing technique that was in widespread use during the first millennium B.C. Its shoulder is decorated with a wreath of petals, and its body by winged bulls flanking palmettes. It is one of three jars in the Museum's collection that reportedly were found at the early first millennium B.C. site of Ziwiye in northwestern Iran, but it is also similar in shape and decoration to examples excavated at the Assyrian city of Ashur on the Tigris River in northern Iraq.

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