Drop-shaped (tanged) pendant seal and modern impression: quadrupeds

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Ubaid seal is typically decorated with stylized animals not entirely reduced to geometric forms, a development from earlier stamps engraved with simple linear patterns. Two long-horned quadrupeds stand facing left. The seal has a tanged extension that thickens at the top into a perforated loop

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.

Metropolitan Museum of Art