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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<strong>of</strong> fired clay was first understood in the<br />
seventh millennium B.C. From that point<br />
on, pottery was the most common type <strong>of</strong><br />
object to come from the ancient ruins <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>Near</strong> <strong>Eastern</strong> civilizations. In the Chalcolithic<br />
period <strong>of</strong> the fourth millennium B.C.,<br />
painted decoration on pottery flourished,<br />
particularly in Iran. <strong>Art</strong>isans first painted<br />
geometric designs in dark brown or black<br />
on buff clay vessels, which were made on<br />
a slow wheel. Gradually they included<br />
more and more animal figures in their<br />
decorative schemes. A large storage jar<br />
(fig. 58) is similar in shape, fabric, and<br />
painted decoration to ones found at the<br />
central Iranian site <strong>of</strong> Tepe Sialk in<br />
levels III 6-7. It has on its side schematic<br />
silhouettes <strong>of</strong> three mountain goats, whose<br />
enormous ridged horns arch majestically<br />
57 over their bodies. <strong>The</strong> zigzag-and-band<br />
Clay, so abundant and useful a resource, decoration separating the goats is typical<br />
was developed and exploited throughout <strong>of</strong> Sialk pottery <strong>of</strong> this early period.<br />
<strong>Near</strong> <strong>Eastern</strong> history. <strong>The</strong> great potential More than a thousand years later, from<br />
the site <strong>of</strong> Tureng Tepe in the Iranian<br />
Gurgan Plain just to the east <strong>of</strong> the Caspian<br />
Sea, a completely different but<br />
equally successful variety <strong>of</strong> pottery<br />
(fig. 57) was produced. Its gray-colored<br />
surface-the result <strong>of</strong> firing in a reducing<br />
rather than oxidizing kiln-is textured<br />
with six registers <strong>of</strong> crisscross patterns<br />
made by burnishing the surface to a<br />
high polish.<br />
During the second millennium B.C. the<br />
technology was developed for both the<br />
glazing <strong>of</strong> pottery and the manufacturing<br />
<strong>of</strong> glass vessels. A large jar (fig. 59)<br />
glazed with green, blue, brown, yellow,<br />
white, and black and decorated with petals<br />
above bulls kneeling before trees is<br />
one <strong>of</strong> three in the <strong>Museum</strong>'s collection<br />
reportedly from the early first-millennium<br />
B.C site <strong>of</strong> Ziwiye in northwestern Iran. It<br />
is similar in shape and decoration to<br />
examples excavated at the Assyrian city<br />
<strong>of</strong> Assur on the Tigris. H.P.<br />
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