Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...
Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...
Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...
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9<br />
9), symbols <strong>of</strong> Ishtar, the great Mesopotamian<br />
goddess <strong>of</strong> love and war (see fig.<br />
27), are from the walls <strong>of</strong> the processional<br />
road leading to the Bit Akitu,<br />
or house <strong>of</strong> the New Year's Festival<br />
(see p. 23).<br />
<strong>The</strong> Babylonian taste for molded and<br />
glazed bricks spread to Iran, and in<br />
the Achaemenid period (550-331 B.C.)<br />
the walls <strong>of</strong> the palaces at Susa had<br />
brightly colored glazed surfaces. <strong>The</strong><br />
most familiar Achaemenid architecture,<br />
however, is at the site <strong>of</strong> Persepolis, in<br />
southwestern Iran. Many <strong>of</strong> the stone<br />
sculptures decorating the entrance gates,<br />
stairs, and walls <strong>of</strong> the royal buildings still<br />
stand, but the mud bricks that formed the<br />
walls <strong>of</strong> these buildings have long since<br />
crumbled away. Some <strong>of</strong> the halls at<br />
Persepolis had huge stone columns over<br />
sixty feet high. On the tops <strong>of</strong> these<br />
columns and the capitals surmounting<br />
them, impost blocks held the wooden<br />
ceiling beams. <strong>The</strong>se blocks were carved<br />
to represent the foreparts <strong>of</strong> various<br />
animals: griffins, bulls, and human-headed<br />
bulls. <strong>The</strong> head <strong>of</strong> a bull (fig. 6) in the<br />
<strong>Museum</strong>'s collection is part <strong>of</strong> one <strong>of</strong><br />
these blocks and combines realistic and<br />
decorative forms in the typical style <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Achaemenid royal workshops. <strong>The</strong> animal's<br />
ears and horns, now lost, were<br />
made from separate pieces <strong>of</strong> stone.<br />
Royal and cult buildings were constructed<br />
with considerable care and<br />
deliberation. <strong>The</strong> ground chosen for tem-<br />
12