Highlights from Art of the Ancient Near East

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Two painted vessels from the Tehran-Qazvin region in central Iran are the earliest ceramics in LACMA’s collection of art of the ancient Near East; they are also the oldest ceramic vessels in the museum’s collections overall. One of the vessels, shown here, is probably from the well-known prehistoric site of Tepe Mushalan, a settlement from the late fifth millennium BC, near the village of Esmailbad. Excavations in the 1950s revealed a large quantity of the Esmailbad painted pottery, called Esmailbad ware. The black-on-red pottery of this ancient period is extremely fine, and exemplars have come from excavations of the sites at Rey and Silak, and the Qazvin Plain. The decorative motifs were inspired by the artistic tradition of the Iranian Plateau. The motif seen here is of ibexes and goats framed in geometric designs.

LACMA’s collection of art of the ancient Near East is particularly rich in its holdings of stamp and cylinder seals from Iran and Mesopotamia. Seals served as emblems of identity and rank among high officials of the time, and this Old Babylonian (c. 2000-1600 BC) cylinder seal is among the finest examples of this genre of artwork. The primary image (seen on the far left and far right of the seal impression) is that of a seated person of high rank, probably a god, who is receiving a gift-bearer. The enthroned god wears Sumerian dress and a horned crown and is holding a cup. Standing before him is a minor deity leading a bearded personage, probably a king, who has placed his hand on his mouth as a sign of respect. The beautiful carving and carefully organized scene is all the more remarkable given the miniature scale of the seal.

As early as the fifteenth century BC, the Egyptians and the Mitannians of Syria had reduced the small kingdom of Ugarit in northern Syria to the status of protectorate. The bronzeworkers of the Ugarit region had a predilection for representing divinities with Egyptianized features, evident in the pharaonic white crown of this Syrian warrior god. The statuette has been dated, according to similar pieces, to the fourteenth century BC, and it originally brandished a weapon, probably a spear, and a shield. The influence of Hittite art, known from the rock reliefs of the Hittite religious center of Yazilikaya (near Ankara, in Turkey), is also visible in the position of the figure’s hands as well as its overall gesture.

This statuette of a sitting woman, often called a “Bactrian” goddess or princess, is an outstanding example of stone carving and the only statuette of its type that still seems to preserve both arms and legs. In contrast to many similar statuettes, the faces of which have lost most of their original details, this sculpture has fine facial features, including small eyes and ears and a linear nose. Also evident is the distinctive layered wool textile, known as kaunakes in southern Iran and Mesopotamia, which is commonly associated with the garment of deities and princesses in the ancient civilizations of Elam and Sumer. The figure shares its overall composition with a well-known group of figures associated with the Bactrian-Margiana civilization in central Asia in the third millennium BC; for this reason, such objects are frequently referred to as “Bactrian.”

Horse-bits are a large and recognizable group within the “canonical” bronzes of Luristan. A typical Luristan horse-bit consists of a rigid mouthpiece and a pair of cheekpieces, either plain or cast in the form of horses, caprids (goats), boars, cocks, and griffins. It is unclear whether horse-bits were manufactured for practical use or only for funerary purposes; however, because many examples seem to show wear and almost all have rear spikes that could have been used as goads, it seems probable that they were used in daily life for large horses, which is also indicative a mobile community.

LACMA’s collection includes fine examples of typical Luristan bronzes, including ceremonial cheekpieces from horse-bits. This cheekpiece, in the shape of an advancing, winged sphinx, was originally one of a pair of horse-bits that had been placed among other grave goods; it is probably the mate for another cheekpiece now in a private collection. The bits are complementary to a whole range of harness trappings. The cheekpiece reveals the Luristan craftsman’s great skill in modeling and casting by lost-wax process, as well as the remarkable combination of natural and fantastic in his imagery.

LACMA possesses a number of outstanding painted vessels from Tepe Sialk’s Cemetery B, near Kashan, in central Iran. These beak-spouted or bridge-spouted vessels best reflect the art of the early Iranians on the Iranian plateau. When newcomers arrived at the town of Sialk during this period, they leveled the existing mound and built a fortified mansion on stone foundations. Their dead were buried in a graveyard away from the town, now called Cemetery B, where some two hundred tombs have been excavated. The date of this cemetery, according to the objects found in the graves, is estimated to be from 800 to 700 BC. The tombs contained a notable series of painted vessels, which appear to have been a luxury funerary ware of the period. The prominent characteristic of this pottery is the decorative motif of horses and elegantly standing ibexes, which was new to the art of the painted ceramics on the Iranian plateau.

This splendid series of five Assyrian bas-reliefs from the ninth-century once decorated the inner walls of the northwest palace of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC). The site of ancient Calah (now called Nimrud), located on the Tigris River in northern Iraq, was first excavated by British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1845. Calah was an ancient capital of Assyria probably founded in the thirteenth century BC. The city was developed under the reign of Ashurnasirpal II, who erected his great northwest palace on earlier ruins. Built of mud brick on stone foundations, the palace was embellished on its lower levels with a series of decorated slabs (from the upper Tigris quarries) that depicted the monarch’s skill as a hunter/warrior, as a servant of the gods, and as a mighty king. One of the five panels depicts the king with a learned man. In one hand, the king holds a libation bowl; in his other hand, he holds his bow, symbol of royal prowess. A long inscription in cuneiform on the reliefs has come to be known as Ashurnasirpal’s “standard inscription” because it was repeated so frequently throughout the palace; it mentions the king’s prayer and his deeds in founding the city of Calah.

The reliefs were discovered in 1855 by a Scottish geologist, William Kenneth Loftus, after the departure of Layard. They were offered to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and for more than a century they were displayed near the entrance of that institution. In 1966, thanks to the generosity of Anna Bing Arnold, the reliefs were purchased and presented to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Khorsabad (ancient Dur-Sharrukin, or the City of Sargon) was founded around 710 BC by Sargon II (reigned 722-705 BC) and, like Nimrud, was an important Assyrian city. The site was excavated by French archaeologist Paul-Emile Botta between 1844 and 1846. Although the Louvre has the finest collection of Khorsabad materials, a number of sculptures from that site can be found in collections in England and North America. LACMA’s fragment, probably from a large relief, depicts the head of an Assyrian sovereign, probably Sargon himself; it still displays exceptional traces of the pigments that once covered all Assyrian reliefs. The fragment was given to the museum by the Phil Berg Foundation and is on view for the first time since its acquisition.

The magnificent palaces of the capital of Persepolis were built by Darius I (the Great, reigned 521-486 BC) around 518 BC. Construction continued for more than sixty years, resulting in the erection of a large number of buildings. The structures, usually built on raised ground and platforms, were scaled via monumental staircases decorated with friezes of glazed bricks or polychrome bas-reliefs. The Persepolis palaces contain the best-known examples of stone relief decoration from the Achaemenid empire. Apadana, the king’s main audience hall at Persepolis, had double staircases with an elaborate series of reliefs that were mirror images of each other. Delegations from all the empire, including Median and Persian noblemen, guards, and attendants, are represented on the reliefs bringing presents and tributes. On this fragment is a figure in Median dress holding a covered vessel. The fragment, a gift of Carl Homes, was probably a part of the decorated staircase of Tachara, the private palace of Darius I.

Silver vessels decorated with heads or busts of figures within a medallion are a distinctive category of Sasanian period (224-650) metalwork. This hemispherical bowl has sixteen concentric circles of fluting running from the rim to the outer molding of the central medallion. The bowl was formed by hammering, while the interior circles were carved. The raised figure was rendered by attaching a piece of cast silver into the vessel’s center. The central figure, depicted frontally, wears a beaded halter, a feature of royal dress in the fourth century. The figure also has a coiffure of tight curls bound at the neck and a full beard knotted below the chin. The design of the crown can be compared with that of Khosrwo II (reigned 616-628), which is known from contemporary coins bearing his likeness.

The Sasanian empire was the last pre-Islamic Iranian empire. The term Sasanian; refers to a dynasty that, from 224 until 651, ruled over much of what is now Iran and Iraq, including parts of Caucasus and eastern Anatolia and Afghanistan. Silverwork has always had a prominent place in the history of art of the ancient Near East, and LACMA’s Sasanian silvers are among the finest. Most Sasanian silver vessels were created using various casting, hammering, and molding techniques. The gilding, which is evident on a majority of the vessels, was generally applied with a mercury amalgam. Pear-shaped vases with decorations in relief on a gilded background were among the silver vessels made in Iran during the sixth and seventh centuries. Around the neck of the vessel, underneath a row of pearl bosses, four female dancers are represented moving from left to right and holding ceremonial objects. One of the dancers, with an elegant coiffure, holds in her right hand what appears to be a basket of grapes or fruits upon which lies a falcon; in her left hand she has a staff wreathed with ivy or vines. Another dancer holds a cup containing wine or fruit; at her side trots a small dog on a leash. The figures have a close iconographic connection with imagery associated with Dionysus, probably indicating an assimilation of that cult into the Iranian fertility cult related to Anahita, the ancient Iranian goddess of love and waters (or fertility).

The civilization of Elam (a word that in the ancient language of Akkadian meant “highland”) originated in the local prehistoric cultures of southern and southwestern Iran; it flourished in the southern half of the Iranian plateau from the late fourth millennium BC, until its demise in the fifth century BC. This Elamite statuette of a baboon, shown in a crouching position and holding a container, dates from the third millennium BC. It is made of soft, cream-colored gypsum, with eyes inlaid in steatite. Its provenance has been a topic of scholarly debate, but it seems that the LACMA baboon was imported to the ancient city of Susa or to Elamite regions of southern Iran, and that its place of manufacture may have been eastern Iran or even Afghanistan.