Handle of vase

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sherd is the remains of a handle for a ceramic vessel, which takes the form of an abstract animal head with large, pellet eyes. It was excavated at Yarim Tepe in northeastern Iran, six miles south of the modern town of Gonbad-e Kavus. Yarim Tepe was a small settlement, inhabited from the Neolithic to the Parthian period, with many interruptions. This sherd probably dates to the first millennium B.C. There is a long tradition in ancient Iranian pottery of making the spouts or handles of vessels in the form of animals.

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