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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

of fired clay was first understood in the seventh millennium B.C. From that point on, pottery was the most common type of object to come from the ancient ruins of Near Eastern civilizations. In the Chalcolithic period of the fourth millennium B.C., painted decoration on pottery flourished, particularly in Iran. Artisans first painted geometric designs in dark brown or black on buff clay vessels, which were made on a slow wheel. Gradually they included more and more animal figures in their decorative schemes. A large storage jar (fig. 58) is similar in shape, fabric, and painted decoration to ones found at the central Iranian site of Tepe Sialk in levels III 6-7. It has on its side schematic silhouettes of three mountain goats, whose enormous ridged horns arch majestically 57 over their bodies. The zigzag-and-band Clay, so abundant and useful a resource, decoration separating the goats is typical was developed and exploited throughout of Sialk pottery of this early period. Near Eastern history. The great potential More than a thousand years later, from the site of Tureng Tepe in the Iranian Gurgan Plain just to the east of the Caspian Sea, a completely different but equally successful variety of pottery (fig. 57) was produced. Its gray-colored surface-the result of firing in a reducing rather than oxidizing kiln-is textured with six registers of crisscross patterns made by burnishing the surface to a high polish. During the second millennium B.C. the technology was developed for both the glazing of pottery and the manufacturing of glass vessels. A large jar (fig. 59) glazed with green, blue, brown, yellow, white, and black and decorated with petals above bulls kneeling before trees is one of three in the Museum's collection reportedly from the early first-millennium B.C site of Ziwiye in northwestern Iran. It is similar in shape and decoration to examples excavated at the Assyrian city of Assur on the Tigris. H.P. I~~~~~ 4 s~~~~~~~ -~~~ ' I 1i .~~~1 r _iiiiii L _illflffBflffIPqlHfs58 59 42
+ *L j YI kr ji c_i' 1i t r;, r*5ct, 2 r.45 .1 1 1 t g r I E 5, ,, 'r . ,i "a rr ''I f ' r .Cr; j *' * "" '% -r 5 9TSs;. ' L i w-> Al "I cO I
Page 1: .9 ^^yiS ^^-tj^_i;*^,-^fa .il^ Br^"
Page 4 and 5: This Bulletin celebrates the new in
Page 6 and 7: of the Achaemenid court, influences
Page 9 and 10: Beginning in the early Neolithic pe
Page 11: W[:f.001 .; a _u i;_,5~~~~~~~~~~~i
Page 14 and 15: 9 9), symbols of Ishtar, the great
Page 16 and 17: W/mWJ'- - l~N 4VIt I kt- -
Page 18 and 19: neck are covered with gold foil. Th
Page 20 and 21: Weapons are documented in the archa
Page 22 and 23: menting their manifold beliefs, int
Page 24 and 25: his gods was not personal diate one
Page 26 and 27: Some of the most elaborate represen
Page 28 and 29: 28 For ancient man the world was fu
Page 31: 34 32 Even in the densely populated
Page 34 and 35: In the ancient Near East plant moti
Page 36 and 37: I'l' %~~~~~~~~~ '~~~~~~~~~ / .tVI<
Page 38 and 39: Beginning in the early 1930s and co
Page 40 and 41: 4950 50 1845-54, when Austen Henry
Page 42 and 43: In the late 1920s, large quantities
Page 46 and 47: In antiquity the many mountain rang
Page 48 and 49: the decorated bronze vessel: by ham
Page 51 and 52: Pieces of jewelry are mentioned in
Page 53 and 54: Clothing in the Near East was commo
Page 55 and 56: hundred texts and inscriptions dati
Page 57 and 58: Mesopotamia (South) Mesopotamia (No
Page 60: I~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~ :,,q~ II :,.. 48 '

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?