Earring

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This elaborate gold earring features a boat-shaped ring with a pendant "amphora" vase suspended from it that is decorated with three rows of arched perforations and both granular and filigree decoration. A ring at the vase’s bottom indicates that an additional pendant originally hung from it. Five pomegranates hang from rings attached to the pendant vase (there were seven originally); pomegranates, associated with fertility, were a popular subject in jewelry from the ancient Near East. The earring’s production date is determined in part because its design is very similar to a pair discovered buried in a cache in the city of Seleucia that is dated between 40 and 120 A.D. Parthian wealth obtained through lucrative trade networks resulted in substantial patronage of the arts and luxury goods including jewelry. In addition to surviving examples, representations of earrings, necklaces, bracelets and frontal bands appear in funerary portraits from Palmyra and statuary from Hatra.

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