Masterworks From the Morgan: Near Eastern Seals June 13, 2009

Pierpont Morgan took great interest in ancient Near Eastern seals, as is evident from his collection, dating 3500-330 B.C. This section of the reopening exhibition displays a number of the best examples of these objects, which are among the earliest known pictorial carvings used to communicate ideas. Created for about three thousand years in the region the ancient Greeks called Mesopotamia, or "the land between two rivers," the function of seals was both practical, as a means of identification, and amuletic, intended to protect or benefit the owner in some way. They are among the smallest pictorial objects ever produced--often just one inch in size--intricately detailed by sculptors who carved them with simple tools in semiprecious stones.