Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...

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Vessels fashioned from silver and gold were made in several areas of the Near East as early as the middle of the third millennium B.C. Ores producing silver exist in Iran, and silver was brought back from Anatolia by merchants from northern Mesopotamia (Assyria) in the early second millennium B.C. Gold came to Mesopotamia from a variety of sources, including the Taurus and Caucasus mountains in the northwest and Egypt in the southwest. Texts also record the shipment of gold from the Indus coastline (Meluhha) in the east. Some of the most spectacular and earliest objects in gold come from the Royal Cemetery at Ur (ca. 2500 B.C.) in Mesopotamia (see fig. 66). Neither gold nor silver is native to Mesopotamia, and the appearance of these materials indicates that an effective system of trade had developed by this time. Slightly later in date than the objects discovered at Ur are gold vessels found in royal tombs in north-central Anatolia. A ewer made of hammered gold (fig. 10) originally had a long spout that projected from the narrow neck. During the second millennium B.C. spouted jugs became extremely elaborate and elegant in form. A representation of a cult scene on a Hittite cup (see back cover) shows one of these jugs in use at a ceremony where a liquid offering is being poured out before a god. One vessel type that had a long history in the ancient Near East incorporates the head or forepart of an animal. A spectacular example (see front cover) comes from Anatolia and was made during the period of Hittite rule (fifteenth to thirteenth century B.C.). The handled cup is in the shape of the forepart of a recumbent stag, an animal commonly represented in the art of Anatolia and associated with a stag god, who can be seen on the band encircling the neck of the vessel (see back cover). The meaning of this cult scene is ~11 ~ uncertain, but the association of certain animal-shaped vessels with particular divinities is described in Hittite texts. Religious or cult scenes of the type found on the Hittite cup are unknown on later vessels of gold or silver that are preserved from the period of Achaemenid rule in Iran. In general, the decoration of these works of art is fairly simple. Bodies are often fluted and decorated with eggshaped bosses (see fig. 72), designs that appear on Near Eastern ceramics and metalwork in the second and early first millennia B.C. Stylized plant motifs include lotuses, palmettes, and rosettes. An Achaemenid cup made of silver is in the shape of a horse's head (fig. 12). The bridle and the file of birds around the 15
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