Bowl with wheel-cut facets

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This hemispherical bowl may have been made by blowing molten glass into an open mold (though possibly it was free-blown); subsequently, four rows of oblong-to-round facets were wheel-cut and polished. The thick glass, originally pale green, has lost much of its surface color and gained extensive iridescence through weathering. Faceted bowls such as this one are characterized by uniformity of shape, size, and arrangement of the facets in four or five rows. They represent the most widespread type of late Sasanian glass vessel, found in excavations of Mesopotamian and Iranian sites dating from the fifth to seventh century A.D. Some examples—probably carried along the Silk Road to the Far East by Persian merchants and traveling embassies—have been found in Japanese contexts, namely in the sixth-century tomb of the emperor Ankan and in the Shoso-in Treasure at Nara, which was assembled by the emperor Shomu in the eighth century.

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