Lamp

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This oil lamp is a simple round dish with a pinched spout where the wick would have been placed. It is made of a coarse clay, and has been blackened on the interior from use. It was excavated at Pasargadae in southwestern Iran, about 90 km northeast of Shiraz. Pasargadae was the first capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great c. 546 B.C. The lamp was found at the Tall-i Takht, a massive artificial platform presumably built as the site of a royal palace but converted into a fortified compound after Darius established a new capital at Persepolis around 520. However, the coin hoards and other finds from the Takht, including this lamp, show that it continued to be occupied down into the second century B.C., long after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire. The lamp was found in a room in the eastern corner of the Takht.

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