Rosette pendant
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This circular shaped pendant is decorated with a repoussé design of a rosette with ten petals and small circles. There is a loop for attachment at the top. It is one of the thousands of artifacts of terracotta, bronze, iron, gold, silver, and ivory which were recovered from monumental buildings at the site of Hasanlu in northwestern Iran. Hasanlu is best known for its early first-millennium B.C. occupation. At that time, it was a major local center of commerce and artistic production with close ties to other political and creative centers of the Near East. In 1957, the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania initiated large-scale excavations at the site with the Iranian Archaeological Service. The Metropolitan Museum of Art co-sponsored the excavations from 1959 to 1977 and received a share of the finds. Many of these objects are now on display in the Museum. Hasanlu was settled from the sixth millennium B.C. through the Achaemenid Persian period of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., as well as later in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Excavations included both stratigraphic soundings and horizontal clearance of the early first-millennium B.C. levels, when the settlement included a fortified citadel and a surrounding lower town and cemeteries. A violent attack and subsequent fire destroyed Hasanlu at the end of the ninth century B.C. and the resulting collapse of buildings buried not only numerous artifacts but also many of the inhabitants.
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.