INTRODUCTION:
The Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art covers both a lengthy chronological span and a vast geographical area. The collection of more than seven thousand works of art ranges in date from 8000 B.C. (the Neolithic period) to the Arab conquest and rise of Islam beginning in A.D. 651. The works come from ancient Mesopotamia, Iran, Syria, Anatolia, and other lands in the region that extends from the Black and Caspian Seas in the north to the southwestern Arabian peninsula, and from western Turkey on the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River Valley in modern-day Pakistan and India. Societies throughout the ancient Near East maintained commercial and cultural contacts across great distances, although the routes, trade goods, and artistic styles and motifs that were exchanged varied in different periods.
Strengths of the department's collection, in formation for more than a century, include Sumerian sculptures; Anatolian ivories; Iranian bronzes; metalwork from Bronze Age Bactria in modern-day Afghanistan and Turkmenistan; and magnificent silver and gold vessels from the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian eras in Iran. These objects are joined by an extraordinary group of Assyrian stone reliefs depicting scenes of warfare and ritual and by enormous guardian figures, all from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.) at Nimrud, as well as by fine ivory carvings, many of which originally served as furniture ornaments at that site. There is also a large collection of stamp and cylinder seals representative of the various cultures of the ancient Near East.
Highlights from the department are presented online in roughly chronological order.
HEad of
Akkadian
Head of an Akkadian ruler,
from Nineveh, Iraq. 2300-2200 B.C.
Bronze, Iraq Museum, BaghdadThis bronze head from Nineveh, dating from about 2300 bc, represents an Akkadian king, possibly Naram-Sin. It stands about 30 cm (12 in) high and originally had precious gems embedded in the eye sockets. The stylized hair and beard are characteristic of Mesopotamian art.
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VIctory STELE of Naram Sin
Image: a victory stele of Naram-Sin, the great grandson of Sargon, named after the Moon -- Sin. Erected after 2250 BC. The two gods shown at the top as stars are the Moon and Jupiter. Jupiter is shown on his mountain.
"Originally this stele was erected in the town of Sippar, centre of the cult of the Sun god, to the north of Babylon. lt was taken as booty to Susa by an Elamite king in the 12th century BC. lt illustrates the victory over the mountain people of western lran by Naram-Sin, 4th king of the Semite dynasty of Akkad, who claimed to be the universal monarch and was deified during his lifetime. He had himself depicted climbing the mountain at the head of his troops. His helmet bears the horns emblematic of divine power. Although it is worn, his face is expressive of the ideal human conqueror, a convention imposed on artists by the monarchy. The king tramples on the bodies of his enemies at the foot of a peak; above it the solar disk figures several times, and the king pays homage to it for his victory." - Louvre
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Human-headed winged lion (lamassu),
883–859 B.C.; Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Ashurnasirpal II
Excavated at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), northern Mesopotamia
Alabaster (gypsum); H. 10 ft. 3 1/2 in. (313.7 cm)
Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1932 (32.143.2)
From the ninth to the seventh century B.C., the kings of Assyria ruled over a vast empire centered in northern Iraq. The first great Assyrian king was Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.), who undertook a vast building program at Nimrud, ancient Kalhu. Until it became the capital city under Ashurnasirpal, Nimrud had been no more than a provincial town.
The new capital occupied an area of about 900 acres, around which Ashurnasirpal constructed a mud-brick wall 120 feet thick, 42 feet high, and 5 miles long. In the southwest corner of this enclosure was the acropolis, where the temples, palaces, and administrative offices of the empire were located. In 879 B.C. Ashurnasirpal held a festival for 69,574 people to celebrate the construction of the new capital, and the event was documented by an inscription that read: "the happy people of all the lands together with the people of Kalhu—for ten days I feasted, wined, bathed, and honored them and sent them back to their home in peace and joy."
Ashurnasirpal's palace is described in the so-called Standard Inscription that ran across the surface of most of the reliefs: "I built thereon [a palace with] halls of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, teak, terebinth, and tamarisk[?] as my royal dwelling and for the enduring leisure life of my lordship." The inscription continues: "Beasts of the mountains and the seas, which I had fashioned out of white limestone and alabaster, I had set up in its gates. I made it [the palace] fittingly imposing." Such limestone beasts are the human-headed, winged bull and lion pictured here. The horned cap attests to their divinity, and the belt signifies their power. The sculptor gave these guardian figures five legs so that they appear to be standing firmly when viewed from the front but striding forward when seen from the side. These lamassi protected and supported important doorways in Assyrian palaces.
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Ishtar Gate
The Sasanian dynasty of Iran ruled an area from the Euphrates River to Bactria from the third century A.D. until the Islamic conquest in the seventh century, controlling for much of that time the Silk Road from Byzantium to China.
Dating from the fourth century, this royal head, hammered from a single sheet of silver, with chased and repoussé details, has parallels in imperial portraits made in the Roman West. The king wears simple ovoid earrings and a beaded necklace of Sasanian fashion. His powerful stare and characteristic arched nose seem to suggest that the artist was attempting to convey a sense of majesty rather than an individual likeness. The identity of the subject of such representations, in relief or in the round, can often be determined by comparison of facial features and details of the crown with those of kings portrayed on Sasanian coins of the period. In this case, however, the crescent that decorates the crenellated crown and the striated orb that rises above it have no exact parallel. It does appear, however, on crowns worn by Kushano-Sasanian rulers. No crescent is seen on the official crowns of Shapur II, but a rock relief at Taq-i Bustan depicts Shapur III (r. 383–88) in a similar fashon.
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