All Essays
Ancient West Asian Art
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Assyrian Sculpture Court (Gallery 401) showcases sculptures from the Assyrian capital city of Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) in a space designed to evoke their original palace setting.
Michael Seymour
January 1, 2022
Far from being considered irrational, magic was the guiding principle by which Mesopotamians understood various natural phenomena and their positive and negative consequences.
Miriam Said
December 1, 2018
Ancient Egypt and the Near East share a number of games that were transmitted through military campaigns and trade relations.
Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi
October 1, 2018
The French monopoly on excavations in Iran ended in 1930, presenting the Metropolitan Museum with an ideal opportunity to apply to the Iranian Antiquities Department for permission to excavate a site.
Caitlin Chaves Yates
June 1, 2018
Although Ctesiphon was known since antiquity to be an important site due to the Taq-i Kisra palace arch, systematic excavations did not take place until 1928.
Caitlin Chaves Yates
February 1, 2018
The art and texts of the Old Assyrian period provide a deep view into the dynamic lives of individual people at the start of the second millennium B.C.
Nancy Highcock
December 1, 2017
A major urban center in northern Mesopotamia from a very early date, the city is best known today for its role as the final capital of the Assyrian empire.
Michael Seymour
September 1, 2017
Along with his studies at the Islamic city of Samarra, [Herzfeld’s] research at Persepolis is the best known work of his career.
Daira Szostak
February 1, 2017
People of the ancient Near East inhabited a world that was saturated with supernatural powers, and the arts of the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods show the range of deities available to the individual as sources of protection and well-being.
Elizabeth Knott
February 1, 2017
Finely crafted small openwork bronzes produced in the early second millennium B.C. are among the more enigmatic objects known from the ancient Near East.
Elizabeth Knott
January 1, 2017