Handle, possibly for a spoon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This elaborate silver handle is decorated with the head of a calf at one end and the head of a lion at the other; a third creature, difficult to identify, emerges from the lion’s mouth. The creature’s long snout is split horizontally, and presumably the bowl of a spoon or another implement was originally inserted there, A silver spoon with a loop handle decorated with the head of a duck was excavated at a palace at Pasargadae, the first capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. That spoon was likely used at the royal table, and probably this spoon was as well. There was a long history in Iran of decorating vessels with animal features, and the Achaemenids adopted and expanded this practice.

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