The Met Museum Presents ASSYRIA TO IBERIA AT THE DAWN OF THE CLASSICAL AGE, 9/22-1/4
By: BWW News Desk
At its height in the 8th to 7th century B.C., the Assyrian Empire was the dominant power of the ancient Near East and the largest empire the world had yet seen, spanning 1,000 miles in a continuous swathe from Assyria (present-day northern Iraq) to the Mediterranean. As Assyria expanded, the Phoenician city-states of the Levant-precariously located along the edge of Assyrian territory-were compelled to expand and strengthen their maritime trade networks to the west. The mercantile connections they established along the northern coast of Africa and the southern coast of Europe to the straits of Gibraltar and beyond, to the Atlantic, became conduits for raw materials, luxury goods, images, and ideas between the Near East and the Mediterranean.
Opening September 22 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the landmark exhibition Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age will trace-through some 260 works of art on loan from major collections in Western Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States-the deep roots of interaction between the ancient Near East and the lands along the shores of the Mediterranean and their impact on the artistic traditions that developed in the region. Parallels will also be drawn between works in the exhibition and those in the Metropolitan Museum's permanent collection in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. The exhibition is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund and Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman.Additional support is provided by an Anonymous Foundation and the Friends of Inanna.
Among the works on view will be monumental sculptures and wall reliefs, masterfully carved ivories, fine metalwork, and luxurious jewelry created by ancient artisans from throughout the Near East and Mediterranean, brought together from some four dozen museums in 13 countries.At the beginning of the first millennium B.C., Assyrian kings began to push westward by means of annual military campaigns. With each new conquest, vast amounts of booty and tribute-whether as raw materials or luxury goods-flowed into Assyrian coffers. Cities that rebelled or refused to send tribute were attacked and sacked. Large populations of conquered peoples were forcibly resettled from their homelands. Official artworks of the time, created to glorify the kings' achievements, also serve as documents of Assyria's aggressive expansionist policy.
The Phoenicians, famed in Homer's Odyssey for their ships, were enterprising seafarers and master navigators who plied the Mediterranean Sea in swift and sturdy merchant vessels, largely in pursuit of the metal resources of the western Mediterranean. In need of safe harbors for their fleets, they established colonies throughout the area, including Carthage on the North African coast. The raw materials the Phoenicians acquired were transformed into luxury goods that were in demand throughout the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. Phoenician artisans ably combined elements from a number of cultures, with the most prominent being the use of Egyptian motifs. Phoenician merchants enjoyed a monopoly on trade of the precious purple dye obtained from murex shells (the word Phoenician derives from the ancient Greek word for "purple"). And the Phoenicians introduced their phonetic alphabet-the precursor of the alphabet used today throughout the western hemisphere-across the Mediterranean. Much simpler to use and learn than cuneiform, the Phoenician alphabet made literacy feasible for a larger segment of the general population. Phoenicia's major cities-Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad-were located on a narrow strip of land and on offshore islands along the coast of present-day Lebanon and Syria. They grew wealthy through trade. Although a range of mountains to the east separated them from the Assyrians, an inscribed bronze band from an ancient gate at Balawat features a scene depicting people from Tyre delivering tribute to king Shalmaneser III (r. 858-824 B.C.) on typically Phoenician boats called "hippoi," because of the horse heads at the stem and stern. Cyprus was rich in deposits of copper, which had long been an important resource for Near Eastern powers; for the Phoenicians it also provided a starting point for routes farther west across the Mediterranean. Kition, one of the most important kingdoms of ancient Cyprus, flourished through Phoenician trade. Magnificent gold jewelry from an elite tomb, dating from the end of the 8th century B.C., indicates a strong Phoenician presence. Also from Kition comes a stele depicting king Sargon II (r.722-705 B.C.), testimony to Assyrian interest in the island. Sargon was apparently able to demand tribute from Cypriot kings, though his claims to control Cyprus have been met with skepticism from scholars. Adoption of Near Eastern Artistic Traditions
At archaeological sites throughout the Mediterranean, artifacts have been found that are embellished with certain popular Near Eastern motifs-such as bulls, griffins, and the "Mistress of Animals," among many others. In some instances, the objects were made in the Near East, or possibly by resident eastern craftsmen in the west, but frequently these goods were locally produced, by artisans who incorporated Near Eastern-style imagery into their own repertoire. During the early first millennium B.C., representations of a Near Eastern goddess-Astarte or Ashtart-also began to appear in various locations across the Mediterranean, carried by the Phoenicians. This goddess would later have a significant impact in the west, where aspects of her persona were adopted into the image of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Diverse foreign dedications were found at a number of important ancient Greek sanctuaries, including Olympia, Delphi, and the sanctuary of Hera on Samos. The number of foreign bronzes and ivories found at Samos-deriving from various parts of the Near East and Egypt- is quite extraordinary and offers a window onto the complexities of interaction in these ritual settings. One famous dedication at Delphi was a throne given by king Midas of Phrygia, in Anatolia. According to Herodotus this was the first dedication at the sanctuary by a non-Greek. It has been suggested that an exquisite ivory plaque known as the "lion tamer" of Delphi may even come from the throne itself. Also from Delphi come gold sheets, filled with Near Eastern animal imagery, that may once have adorned the garments of divine statues: of Apollo, his sister Artemis, and their mother Leto. The astonishingly broad reach of trade in the period is demonstrated by a display of several large, fluted tridacna (giant clam) shells, decorated with incised human and plant forms. Probably used as cosmetic palettes, the shells themselves originated in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean; the carving was most likely done in the Levant; and the examples on view were found in Babylonia, Assyria, Greece, and Etruria. Discovered in elite tombs of the period in Greece and Italy were Near Eastern goods and locally manufactured artifacts with orientalizing traits, among them monumental cauldrons with animal-head attachments at the rim. Herodotus records seafaring traders from Samos dedicating just such a cauldron, with griffin-head attachments, at the sanctuary of Hera. A highlight of the exhibition will be several works from the seldom-shown Carambolo Treasure. Discovered near Seville, Spain, the treasure consists of exceptionally finely worked gold jewelry reflecting both Phoenician and local metalworking traditions. More recently, the discovery of a ritual complex nearby has given scholars a social background for understanding these spectacular artifacts. At the heart of this Mediterranean system was shipping. The exhibition will include discoveries from ships that were wrecked off the coast of Spain, including metalwork, weights, a Phoenician altar, and several elephant tusks inscribed with the names of Phoenician gods and goddesses. Babylonian Rule
After three centuries of Assyrian rule, Babylon allied with the Medes of western Iran and repeatedly pushed back and defeated Assyrian armies, ultimately attacking and destroying Nineveh. Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604-562 B.C.) rebuilt Babylon on a grand scale, and strove to make his name eternal. A series of stelae that tell the story of the transition of power from Assyria to Babylon will be shown. The exhibition will include a model of Babylon's famed Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, alongside several actual reliefs from these monuments. Babylon was a world center politically, economically, and culturally, while in Mesopotamian terms Babylon was a holy city, with special cultic importance. Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon was not only the culmination of the Mesopotamian imperial age, but would become the focus of much later tradition. A section of the exhibition will explore this legacy through images such as the Tower of Babel and Belshazzar's Feast, as well as other famous biblical images of this period, such as the Temple of Solomon and the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem. Catalogue and Related Programs
The exhibition will be accompanied by a copiously illustrated catalogue, suitable for students, scholars, and the general public. Edited by Joan Aruz, Curator in Charge, and Yelena Rakic and Sarah Graff, Assistant Curators, all of the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, the book includes essays by experts in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean art and culture from leading museums, universities, and other research institutions worldwide. Published by the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press, the catalogue will be available in the Museum's book shops. A series of education programs has been organized to complement the exhibition. These include programs for children and families, gallery talks, lectures, a Sunday at the Metprogram, a "sneak peek" program for college-level educators, and a workshop for K-12 educators. The academic program will include a two-day symposium with leading international scholars in the field, a scholars' day, and a series of lectures by specialists. The symposium is made possible by The Charles K. Wilkinson Lecture Series fund. An audio tour, part of the Museum's Audio Guide program, is available for rental ($7, $6 for Members, $5 for children under 12). The Audio Guide is sponsored by Bloomberg. The exhibition will be featured on the Museum's website at www.metmuseum.org. The exhibition is organized by Joan Aruz, Curator in Charge, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art.Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, which focuses on the early first millennium B.C., is the third in a series of major Metropolitan Museum exhibitions, with related catalogues, focusing on art and regional interconnections during specific eras in the history of the ancient Near East. The first exhibition, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, was shown in 2003, and the second, Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C., in 2008-2009. Together, their catalogues form an authoritative survey of art and interaction across three millennia of ancient Near Eastern history.
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