Textile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbons

Textile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbons

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Textiles made in Egypt, the Near East, and western Central Asia in the Sasanian era were commonly decorated with a single animal, or a confronted pair. A particularly angular, geometric stylization of the animals characterized some of the pieces woven in Sogd, in western Central Asia. The precious quality of luxurious silks led to the transfer of textile patterns to other media—silver vessels, stone carvings, and ceramics—many of which were made centuries after the collapse of Sasanian Iran and the widespread Arab conquests in the Near East. The beribboned ram depicted on this textile fragment is of Sasanian inspiration. The gait of the animal and certain stylistic details such as the frontally represented spread horns and the neckband and fluttering ribbons are characteristic features of this motif as it occurs on Sasanian seals and stucco.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Textile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbonsTextile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbonsTextile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbonsTextile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbonsTextile fragment: walking ram with a neckband and fluttering ribbons

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.