Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...

Vessels fashioned from silver and gold
were made in several areas of the Near
East as early as the middle of the third
millennium B.C. Ores producing silver
exist in Iran, and silver was brought back
from Anatolia by merchants from northern
Mesopotamia (Assyria) in the early
second millennium B.C. Gold came to
Mesopotamia from a variety of sources,
including the Taurus and Caucasus mountains
in the northwest and Egypt in the
southwest. Texts also record the shipment
of gold from the Indus coastline
(Meluhha) in the east.
Some of the most spectacular and
earliest objects in gold come from the
Royal Cemetery at Ur (ca. 2500 B.C.) in
Mesopotamia (see fig. 66). Neither gold
nor silver is native to Mesopotamia, and
the appearance of these materials indicates
that an effective system of trade
had developed by this time.
Slightly later in date than the objects
discovered at Ur are gold vessels found
in royal tombs in north-central Anatolia. A
ewer made of hammered gold (fig. 10)
originally had a long spout that projected
from the narrow neck. During the second
millennium B.C. spouted jugs became extremely
elaborate and elegant in form. A
representation of a cult scene on a Hittite
cup (see back cover) shows one of these
jugs in use at a ceremony where a liquid
offering is being poured out before a god.
One vessel type that had a long history
in the ancient Near East incorporates the
head or forepart of an animal. A spectacular
example (see front cover) comes from
Anatolia and was made during the period
of Hittite rule (fifteenth to thirteenth
century B.C.). The handled cup is in the
shape of the forepart of a recumbent
stag, an animal commonly represented in
the art of Anatolia and associated with a
stag god, who can be seen on the band encircling
the neck of the vessel (see back
cover). The meaning of this cult scene is
~11 ~ uncertain, but the association of certain
animal-shaped vessels with particular
divinities is described in Hittite texts.
Religious or cult scenes of the type
found on the Hittite cup are unknown on
later vessels of gold or silver that are
preserved from the period of Achaemenid
rule in Iran. In general, the decoration of
these works of art is fairly simple. Bodies
are often fluted and decorated with eggshaped
bosses (see fig. 72), designs that
appear on Near Eastern ceramics and
metalwork in the second and early first
millennia B.C. Stylized plant motifs include
lotuses, palmettes, and rosettes.
An Achaemenid cup made of silver is
in the shape of a horse's head (fig. 12).
The bridle and the file of birds around the
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