Votive or funerary stele

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This highly polished alabaster stele is made of two pieces. A smooth undecorated slab sits in a socket carved into a stepped base. Inscribed in Sabaic letters in two rows on the base is “DRMT SFLYN.” This name, "Dhurmat (of the clan) Safalin” identifies the person, perhaps a woman, who dedicated the monument. The shapes of the letters allows us to date this object to the late first millennium B.C.

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