Art of the Bronze Age Southeastern Iran by Holly Pittman (.PDF)
File Size: 9 MB
Art of the Bronze Age Southeastern Iran, Western Central Asia, and the Indus Valley by Holly Pittman
Requirements: .PDF reader, 9 mb
Overview: The ancient cultures of the Near East have become known to us slowly. Before the cuneiform inscriptions were deciphered in the middle of the last century, we depended on the much later biblical, Greek, and Roman sources to reveal glimpses of the lands, cities, and rulers of ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, traditionally considered the heartland of the ancient Near East. Beyond Mesopotamia, other cultures, most without written languages, also thrived. To the west were those of the Levant and Anatolia; to the east, those of the Iranian Plateau, Central Asia, and the valley of the Indus River. Until the turn of this century these apparently peripheral cultures were known by little more than a few odd pieces, objects that floated without context on museum shelves, understood only as historical curiosities. Although there are still large gaps in our understanding, our knowledge about these regions has increased greatly, and we now know that major independent, complex cultures thrived there, not peripheral to others, but core areas in themselves.
The purpose of this publication is to place in their proper context the objects in the Metropolitan’s collection and those on loan to the Museum, and to assign to each an identity based on comparisons with other objects whose provenances are known certainly. These comparisons include elements of materials; techniques of manufacture; shape; function; style; and iconography. The present volume is not a comprehensive survey of the Middle Bronze Age in these eastern lands. Rather it is an attempt to briefly summarize what we know about these cultures as a background against which we can propose the cultural affiliation of some objects.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History
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