Necklace

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although they are now strung together, these beads, made of limestone, frit, bitumen, alabaster and carnelian, were not necessarily part of a single necklace in antiquity. They were certainly objects of personal adornment, however, and they were found together in a man’s grave at Tepe Hissar, near the modern city of Damghan in northern Iran. Tepe Hissar was primarily an agricultural settlement, though much of the evidence for plant cultivation dates to later periods, with buildings made of mudbrick or simply mud walls. The grave dates to the early 4th millennium B.C., which gives us the date for the beads.

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