The rise of territorial states and empires in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Syria during the third and second millennia B.C., with their palaces and temples, provided the context for the creation of elite works of art, including stone sculptures, metalwork, jewelry, carved ivories, ceramics, and cylinder seals.
They document regional cultural developments and illustrate interconnections between peoples that stretched from the Mesopotamian heartland eastward to Iran, Bactria-Margiana in western Central Asia, and the Indus Valley, and westward to the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
