Resource Spotlight | “Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus” by Joan Aruz, ed. & Ronald Wallenfels

 

Shaft-hole axe head with bird-headed demon, boar, and dragon
Bronze Age
ca. late 3rd–early 2nd millennium BCE
Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex
Silver, gold foil
Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, and James N. Spear and Schimmel Foundation Inc. Gifts, 1982
1982.5
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 
 
 

Art of the First Cities

The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus

 
 

by Joan Aruz, ed. & Ronald Wallenfels

with essays by

Hans J. Nissen, Donald P. Hansen, Holly Pittman, Joachim Marzahn, Karen L. Wilson, Béatrice André-Salvini, Julian Reade, Jean-Claude Margueron, Nadja Cholidis, Paolo Matthiae, Glenn M. Schwartz, Anne Porter, Thomas McClellan, Giorgio Buccellati, Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, James P. Allen, Claus Reinholdt, Eleni Drakaki, Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki, Oscar White Muscarella, Elena Izbitser, Yuri Piotrovsky, D. T. Potts, Jean-François de Lapérouse, Paul Collins, Joan Aruz, Maurizio Tosi, C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Elisabetta Valtz Fino, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Jean M. Evans, Béatrice André-Salvini, Piotr Michalowski, Beate Salje, and Ira Spar

 
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This resource is generously provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

Limestone pediment fragment
Hellenistic
ca. 300 BCE
Greek, South Italian, Tarentine
Limestone
Purchase, Moses Fried Foundation and Dr. and Mrs. Jerome M. Eisenberg Gift,1992
1992.11.1
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Object with a handle, perhaps a weight; palm trees and guilloche
Early Bronze Age
ca. mid- to late 3rd millennium BCE
Chlorite schist
Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989
1989.281.40
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Standing male worshiper
Early Dynastic I-II
ca. 2900–2600 BCE
Sumerian
Gypsum alabaster, shell, black limestone, bitumen
Fletcher Fund, 1940
40.156
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stele of Ushumgal and Shara-igizi-Abzu
Early Dynastic I
2900–2700 BCE
Sumerian
Gypsum alabaster
Funds from various donors, 1958
58.29
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Statue of Gudea, named “Gudea, the man who built the temple, may his life be long”
Neo-Sumerian
ca. 2090 BCE
Neo-Sumerian
Diorite
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1959
59.2
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stele of Ushumgal and Shara-igizi-Abzu
Early Dynastic I
2900–2700 BCE
Sumerian
Gypsum alabaster
Funds from various donors, 1958
58.29
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Statue of Ur-Ningirsu, son of Gudea
Neo-Sumerian
ca. 2080 BCE
Neo-Sumerian
Chlorite
Rogers Fund, 1947 and Lent by Musée du Louvre
47.100.86+L.2014.59
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Head of a ruler
Early Bronze Age
ca. 2300–2000 BCE
Copper alloy
Rogers Fund, 1947
47.100.80
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Standing female worshiper
Early Dynastic IIIa
ca. 2600–2500 BCE
Sumerian
Limestone, inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli
Rogers Fund, 1962
62.70.2
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kneeling bull holding a spouted vessel
Proto-Elamite
ca. 3100–2900 BCE
Silver
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1966
66.173
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stele of Ushumgal and Shara-igizi-Abzu
Early Dynastic I
2900–2700 BCE
Sumerian
Gypsum alabaster
Funds from various donors, 1958
58.29
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Foundation peg in the form of the forepart of a lion
Early Bronze Age
ca. 2200–2100 BCE
Hurrian
Copper alloy
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1948
48.180
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stele of Ushumgal and Shara-igizi-Abzu
Early Dynastic I
2900–2700 BCE
Sumerian
Gypsum alabaster
Funds from various donors, 1958
58.29
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Colophon

Author | Joan Aruz, Ronald Wallenfels
Publisher | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Date of Publication | 2003

News 16Editorial TeamArt of the Ancestors, Steven G. Alpert, Asian Art, Island Southeast Asian Art, Oceanic Art, Asiatica, Ethnographica, Ethnographic Art, Art Collection, Fine Art, Primitive Art, Indonesian Art, Tribal Art, Eyes of the Ancestors, Dr. Reimar Schefold