The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East March 18, 2019 - June 23 2019 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East March 18, 2019 - June 23 2019 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
For over three centuries, the territories and trading networks of the Middle East were contested between the Roman and Parthian Empires (ca. 100 B.C.–A.D. 250), yet across the region life was not defined by these two superpowers alone. Local cultural and religious traditions flourished, and sculptures, wall paintings, jewelry, and other objects reveal how ancient identities were expressed through art. Featuring 190 works from museums in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this exhibition will follow a journey along the great incense and silk routes that connected cities in southwestern Arabia, Nabataea, Judaea, Syria, and Mesopotamia, making the region a center of global trade.


Image: Head of a bearded god from Dura-Europos, Syria 1st century CE from the Yale University Art Gallery.

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