The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces New Galleries for the Art of Ancient West Asia and Ancient Cyprus, Opening 2027

(New York, May 22, 2025)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that new galleries for the Art of Ancient West Asia and the Art of Ancient Cyprus will open in 2027, after an extensive renovation. The new installations involve two curatorial departments: the Department of Greek and Roman Art and the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, which is being renamed the Department of Ancient West Asian Art. The new department name uses terminology that describes a distinct geographical region, rather than one that is in relation to a presumed center, and reflects a more current scholarly perspective. The $40 million, 15,000-square-foot project is designed by the architectural firm, NADAAA, led by Nader Tehrani.

Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer, said: “The renovation of the galleries for the arts of ancient West Asia and ancient Cyprus will present innovative scholarship and research as well as bring these cultures into dialogue with the Museum’s collection overall. The new design provides greater space to delve into various ancient and modern stories behind the works, allowing us to engage with our community through collaborative and meaningful new experiences.”

The Met’s collection from ancient West Asia encompasses more than ten thousand years of art and history, starting in about 8000 BCE and continuing until the seventh century CE. The new galleries will situate visitors within this long expanse of time as well as within a vast interconnected world that extends from the eastern Mediterranean coast to Central Asia, and is represented at The Met by artworks focused on ancient Iraq and Iran. The dynamic reinstallation will highlight new research and diverse narratives that contextualize objects and the people who made them within their own time as well as within contemporary discourse.

Kim Benzel, Curator in Charge of the Department of Ancient West Asian Art, said: “The people who lived in ancient West Asia were intellectually advanced and conceptually nuanced, developing modes of understanding and organizing the world in ways that are still relevant today. The objects they created help us understand the complexity of their world and that of our own. By emphasizing a reciprocity across time, the new galleries seek to create fluid connections between past, present, and future. Provenance stories and object histories will make this intertwining evident.”

The new Art of Ancient Cyprus galleries forefront the collection, its chronological span, and its cultural contexts—with outstanding works of limestone sculpture at its heart—to frame the installation’s conceptual organization. Narratives that engage with materials and materiality, funerary ritual and feasting, gods and sanctuaries, and identities and representations will allow visitors to experience both continuity and changes in artistic and cultural traditions over time.

Sean Hemingway, John A. and Carole O. Moran Curator in Charge of the Department of Greek and Roman Art, said: “The Met’s historic Cesnola collection, which consists of objects dated from about 2500 BCE to around 300 CE, reflects the island’s significant history and its role as an ancient crossroads. The new display will feature a diverse selection of artifacts that testify to the quintessentially Cypriot amalgam of local traditions and elements adapted from the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans.”

The newly envisioned galleries have been designed with the visitor experience in mind, with ample seating and a ramp for access. The vistas open and connect to the Great Hall Balcony and the Department of Asian Art to the north and, to the south, the galleries for Islamic art and European paintings. The Art of Ancient West Asia galleries will feature a series of architectural backdrops that reflect the materials used in the works on display, such as clay, copper, bronze, gold, silver, limestone, and lapis lazuli. The display in the Art of Ancient Cyprus galleries will be enhanced by the galleries’ deep purple and red torus wall, which reflects colors found in the natural mineral resources of the island and are found on representative objects in the collection.

About the Objects

The Met’s Department of Ancient West Asian Art was formally established as the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art in 1956, although the Museum began acquiring art from ancient West Asia in the early decades after its founding in 1870. The department presently cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium BCE through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century CE. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises a vast region that extends from the eastern Mediterranean coast to Central Asia, and is represented at The Met by artworks focused on ancient Iraq and Iran. From the art of some of the world’s first cities to that of great empires, the department’s holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region. The most well-known works in the collection include the Assyrian sculpture court with its beloved winged lion and bull; important Hittite silver drinking vessels; Sumerian votive and dedicatory statues; extraordinary cast copper sculptures from Iran and Mesopotamia; colorful glazed brick panels from the Processional Way at Babylon; outstanding examples of Sasanian metalwork; and some of the earliest written records in the world in the form of clay tablets. Today, the collection is widely recognized for its global significance to the study of the art and archaeology of this region.

The Cesnola collection of Cypriot art is part of the Museum’s holdings of Greek and Roman art. The collection of art from ancient Cyprus comprises nearly 6,000 works of art among the more than 30,000 held in the department and range in date from the Neolithic period (about 4500 BCE) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in 312 CE. Acquired by General Luigi Palma di Cesnola while he was serving as American consul in Cyprus between 1865 and 1876, these works were purchased by the then recently founded Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1874 and 1876 and constituted its first large collection of archaeological materials. In 1879, Cesnola was named the Museum’s first director, a position he held until his death in 1904. The Cesnola collection remains, by far, the most important and comprehensive collection of ancient Cypriot material outside of Cyprus. Among the objects—which represent every major medium worked in antiquity—are monumental stone sculptures; copper alloy weapons, tools, and domestic utensils; terracotta and glass vases, lamps, and ritual paraphernalia; dedicatory figurines; engraved sealstones; gold jewelry; and luxury items in ivory, faience, alabaster, and precious metals. The Cesnola collection has been on display since 1880 in The Met’s first building in Central Park. The galleries were last renovated in 2000.

###

May 22, 2025