Stem of pedestal vase

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This ceramic tube is the pedestal of a goblet or stemmed bowl. It is made of red clay and decorated with black paint. 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. Pedestal vessels have been discovered at other sites in the region, such as Shah Tepe, Tureng Tepe and Tepe Hissar, dating to the late Chalcolithic period. This pedestal probably dates to the same period, when this region served as an important link between the emerging cities of Mesopotamia and Afghanistan, one of the few sources of both tin and lapis lazuli in the ancient Near East.

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