Designed to complement "Art of the First Cities" -- an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum through August 17, 2003 --this Web site presents almost two dozen examples of Third Millennium B.C. art from the region called the "cradle of civilization," an area stretching from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean across Iran and Central Asia to the Indus Valley. The site is divided into eight thematic sections: Masterpieces, Cities, The Ruler, The Divine World, Death and Burial, Writing, Seals and Sealing, Clothing and Personal Adornment. The Masterpieces section is almost a checklist of featured items, showing images that reappear in other sections, such as the Standard of Ur, appearing in Masterpieces and The Ruler. The Cities section includes both architectural artifacts and views of the ancient cities of Troy, Uruk, Nippur, Ur, Mohenjo-daro, for example, a cone mosaic fragment from Uruk, accompanied by a photographic reconstruction showing columns with cone mosaic applied; or a nineteenth-century engraving showing Troy. Over 700 more Third Millennium artifacts are depicted in the exhibition catalog, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus.
Comments