Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)

Joan Aruz

Ronald Wallenfels

This volume, which accompanies a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, explores the artistic achievements of the era of the first cities in both the Mesopotamian heartland and across the expanse of western Asia.

The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus

Art of the First Cities

Judith Weingarten

Lara Fabian

Colin F. Macdonald

Nisha Kumar

Robert Koehl has long considered processions to have played an integral role in Aegean Bronze Age societies. Papers concentrate mainly on evidence from Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland, with additional perspectives from abroad, these geographic divisions forming the basic outline of this volume.

Processions: Studies of Bronze Age Ritual and Ceremony presented to Robert B. Koehl

Musée du Louvre

Prudence Oliver Harper

Françoise Tallon

The ancient city of Susa (biblical Shushan) lay at the edge of the Iranian plateau, not far from the great cities of Mesopotamia. A strategically located and vital center, Susa absorbed diverse influences and underwent great political fluctuations during the several thousand years of its history. When French archaeologists began to excavate its site in the nineteenth century, the astonishing abundance of finds greatly expanded our understanding of the ancient Near East. The artifacts were taken to Paris through diplomatic agreement and became a centerpiece of the Louvre's great collection of Near Eastern antiquities. These works are rarely loaned, but a remarkable selection that includes many undisputed masterpieces, brought to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for exhibition, is presented in this comprehensive publication. Susa was settled about 4000 B.C. and has yielded striking pottery finds from that prehistoric period. A rich production followed of objects for daily use, ritual, and luxury living, finely carved in various materials or fashioned of clay. Monumental sculpture was made in stone or bronze, and dramatic friezes were composed of brilliantly glazed bricks. Among the discoveries are tiny, intricately carved cylinder seals and splendid jewelry. Clay balls marked with symbols offer fascinating testimony to the very beginnings of writing; clay tablets from later periods bearing inscriptions in cuneiform record political history, literature, business transactions, and mathematical calculations. A very important group of finds from Susa is made up of objects brought back as booty from conquests in Mesopotamia. These works, many of them the royal monuments of Akkadian and Babylonian monarchs - for instance, the great stele of Naram-Sin - are among the best known of all objects from the ancient Near East. Altogether, the exhibition presents more than two hundred objects found at Susa, produced over a period of about 3500 years. They come from all periods of the site's settlement, from it earliest history to its adornment as a major city of the opulent Achaemenid Persian empire. Eighteen French and American scholars have contributed essays to this volume on subjects that include the history of art in ancient Iran from prehistoric settlement through the Achaemenid period; the history of the excavations at Susa; the development of writing; seals and sealings; royal and religious structures at Susa; objects brought from Mesopotamia; brick decoration; popular art; and cuneiform texts. Recent results of ongoing research into the archaeology of Susa are discussed. Analyses of specific techniques are included as well as reports on the conservation of objects. Each work in the exhibition is illustrated and fully described, with references to relevant publications.

Ancient Near Eastern Treasures in the Louvre

The Royal City of Susa

Yelena Rakic

Sarah B. Graff

In conjunction with the 2008-9 exhibition "Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C." at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a series of lectures brought together major international scholars in a variety of fields concerned with the worlds of the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean in the middle and late Bronze Ages. Interconnections among these rich and complex civilizations extending from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean were developed in detail, ranging from reports of new archaeological discoveries and insightful art historical interpretations of material culture, to innovative investigations of literary, historical, and political aspects of interactions among these great powers. This symposium volume, containing twenty-eight essays, is an ideal companion to the exhibition catalogue, providing compelling overviews of the ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean cultures during this period that are both broad and deep in their range.

From Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C.

Cultures in Contact

Elisabetta Valtz Fino

Afghanistan, standing at the crossroads of major trade routes, has a long and complex history. Its rich cultural heritage bears the imprint of many traditions, from Greece and Iran to the nomadic world of the Eurasian steppes and China. The essays in this volume concentrate on periods of great artistic development: the Bactrian Bronze Age and the eras following the conquests of Alexander the Great, with a special focus on the sites of Ai Khanum, Begram, and Tillya Tepe. These contributions -- in response to the reappearance of the magnificent hidden treasures from Afghanistan and their exhibition -- have shed new light on the significance of these works and have reinvigorated the discussion of the arts and culture of Central Asia. -- Publisher description.

Forging Civilizations Along the Silk Road

Afghanistan

Ted Kaizer

Michał Gawlikowski

Waleed Khaled al-Asa‘ad

Dr. Eleonora Cussini

Lucinda Dirven

Maura K. Heyn

Michel Al-Maqdissi

Eva Ishaq

Jørgen Christian Meyer

Dr. Rubina Raja

Andreas Schmidt-Colinet

In response to the catastrophic destruction of Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site, a group of major international scholars gathered to focus on the art, archaeology, and history of the beleaguered site and present their latest findings. Their papers, given at a symposium at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2016, have been collected in this fascinating and important publication. They are accompanied by a moving tribute by Waleed Khaled al-Asa‘ad to his father, Khaled al-Asa‘ad, the Syrian archaeologist and head of antiquities for the ancient city of Palmyra who was brutally murdered in 2015 while defending the site. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana} Palmyra: Mirage in the Desert, published simultaneously in English and Arabic, is the latest volume in the Metropolitan Museum symposium series. It is a major contribution to the knowledge and understanding of this multicultural desert—located at the crossroads of the ancient world—that will help preserve the memory of this extraordinary place for generations to come.</p>

Mirage in the Desert

Palmyra

Ann Farkas

Perspectives on the Steppe Nomads of the Ancient World

The Golden Deer of Eurasia

In this important and timely publication, top international scholars present current research and developments about the art, archaeology, and history of the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Syria. Palmyra became tragic headline news in 2015, when it was overtaken by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which destroyed many of its monuments and artifacts. The essays in this book include new scholarship on Palmyra's origins and evolution as well as developments from both before and after its damage by ISIS, providing new information that will be relevant to current and future generations of art historians and archaeologists. The book also includes a moving tribute by Waleed Khaled al-Asa'ad to his father, Khaled al-Asa'ad, the Syrian archaeologist, who was the head of antiquities and curator at Palmyra, who was brutally murdered by ISIS in 2015 for defending the site.

Bringing together the research of internationally renowned scholars, Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age contributes significantly to our understanding of the epoch-making artistic and cultural exchanges that took place across the Near East and Mediterranean in the early first millennium B.C. This was the world of Odysseus, in which seafaring Phoenician merchants charted new nautical trade routes and established prosperous trading posts and colonies on the shores of three continents; of kings Midas and Croesus, legendary for their wealth; and of the Hebrew Bible, whose stories are brought vividly to life by archaeological discoveries. Objects drawn from collections in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and the United States, reproduced here in sumptuous detail, reflect the cultural encounters of diverse populations interacting through trade, travel, and migration as well as war and displacement. Together, they tell a compelling story of the origins and development of Western artistic traditions that trace their roots to the ancient Near East and across the Mediterranean world. Among the masterpieces brought together in this volume are stone reliefs that adorned the majestic palaces of ancient Assyria; expertly crafted Phonecian and Syrian bronzes and worked ivories that were stored in the treasuries of Assyria and deposited in tombs and sanctuaries in regions far to the west; and lavish personal adornments and other luxury goods, some imported and others inspired by Near Eastern craftsmanship. Accompanying texts by leading scholars position each object in cultural and historical context, weaving a narrative of crisis and conquest, worship and warfare, and epic and empire that spans both continents and millennia. Writing another chapter in the story begun in Art of the First Cities (2003) and Beyond Babylon (2008), Assyria to Iberia offers a comprehensive overview of art, diplomacy, and cultural exchange in an age of imperial and mercantile expansion in the ancient Near East and across the Mediterranean in the first millennium B.C.—the dawn of the Classical age.

Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age

Joan Aruz

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