In response to current events, Metropolitan Museum curators and researchers will give informal ten-minute talks on Friday mornings at 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. through the end of March, in the galleries of Ancient Near Eastern Art and of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia, about works of art of their choice. The chats will be followed by discussion with visitors. Each program will focus on a different work of art created between the fourth millennium B.C. and the 21st century that has particular resonance to the present day.
A broad range of topics will be discussed over the span of the program: ancient trade, the concept of home, cultural exchange, customary law, demons and deities, kingship, magical beliefs, migration, the military, multicultural societies, prayer, royal patronage of the arts, and scientific and technological advances.
Ancient regions represented include: Anatolia, Assyria, Babylonia, China, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Persia, and Sumer, among others. Cultures to be discussed include: Abbasid, Seljuq, Timurid, Safavid, and Ottoman. Modern countries represented are Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, among others.
Other lectures in the series are described in the Museum's RumiNations blog.
These programs are free with Museum admission.
The list of upcoming talks follows. Schedule subject to change.
February 24
11:00 am
Courtney Stewart, Senior Research Assistant, Department of Islamic Art
Pax Mongolica: Cultural Exchange during the Ilkhanid Period (Gallery 455)
11:30 am
Sheila Canby, Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge, Department of Islamic Art
Medicine and Poetry: Paintings from Syria and Iran (Gallery 454, 455)
March 3
11:00 am
Courtney Stewart, Senior Research Assistant, Department of Islamic Art
Timur—The Man and the Legend (Gallery 450, 455)
Blair Fowlkes-Childs, Research Associate, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Herakles at Dura Europos in Syria (Gallery 406)
11:30 am
Maryam Ekhtiar, Associate Curator, Department of Islamic Art
Iran and Europe: Artistic Exchanges (Gallery 462)
Yelena Rakic, Associate Curator, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Image and Text: A Third Millennium B.C. Monument (The Ushumgal Stele) (Gallery 403)
March 10
11:00 am
Alzahraa K. Ahmed, Hagop Kevorkian curatorial fellow
Iraq and Central Arab Lands: Abbasid Artistic Innovations (Gallery 451)
Nancy Highcock, Hagop Kevorkian Fellow, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Old Assyrian Merchants in Anatolia (Gallery 403)
11:30 am
Sheila Canby, Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge, Department of Islamic Art
The Book of Kings, the Iranian National Epic (Gallery 455, 462)
Sarah Graff, Associate Curator, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
A Royal Palace at Tell Halaf, Syria (Gallery 400)
March 17
11:00 am
Alzahraa K. Ahmed, Hagop Kevorkian curatorial fellow
Sheathing the Word of God: Early Qur'ans (Gallery 450)
Michael Seymour, Assistant Curator, Ancient Near Eastern Art
An Assyrian Prince from Nineveh, Iraq (Gallery 400)
11:30 am
Courtney Stewart,Senior Research Assistant, Department of Islamic Art
Looking Closely at The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp (Gallery 462)
Anne Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi, Hagop Kevorkian Research Associate, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
The Master of Animals in Ancient Iran (Gallery 404)
March 24
11:00 am
Deniz Beyazit, Assistant Curator, Department of Islamic Art
Ceramic Tiles and Decoration in Iran and Syria (Gallery 454, 455)
Miriam Said, Frances Markoe Fellow, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Lamashtu and Pazuzu: Demons in Ancient Iraq (Gallery 406)
11:30 am
Jennifer Farrell, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints
Home is a Foreign Place (Gallery 464)
Nancy Highcock, Hagop Kevorkian Fellow, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Elizabeth Knott, Hagop Kevorkian Research Associate, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
A Talking Frog? Justice and Commerce in Ancient Iraq (Gallery 406)
March 31
11:00 am
Deniz Beyazit, Assistant Curator, Department of Islamic Art
The Damascus Room (Gallery 461)
Anastasia Amrhein, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Clay Figurines from Babylonia, Ancient Iraq (Gallery 404)
11:30 am
Martina Rugiadi, Assistant Curator, Department of Islamic Art
Iran: Ceramics and Technological Revolutions (Gallery 453)
Kim Benzel, Acting Associate Curator in Charge, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
Concepts of Past, Present, and Future in Ancient Iran (Gallery 402)
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February 23, 2017
Images:
Bowl Decorated in the "Beveled Style." Made in present-day Uzbekistan, Samarqand, 10th century. Earthenware; white slip with polychrome slip decoration under transparent glaze. Rogers Fund, 1928 (28.82).
Orthostat relief: lion-hunt scene. Neo-Hittite, ca. 9th century B.C. Syria, Tell Halaf (ancient Guzana). Basalt, paint. Rogers Fund, 1943 (43.135.2).
Tile with Image of Phoenix. From Iran, probably Takht-i Sulaiman, late 13th century. Stonepaste; modeled, underglaze painted in blue and turquoise, luster-painted on opaque white ground. Rogers Fund, 1912 (12.49.4).
Top for standard. Iran, probably from Luristan, Iron Age III, ca. 8th century B.C. Bronze. Gift of Laura White and Fred Randolph, 1996 (1996.82.1).
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