DETROIT – The Detroit Institute of Arts will open a revamped Ancient Middle East gallery on Oct. 2. The 2,855-square-foot gallery on the first floor of the museum includes remarkable art from the ancient empires of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Rome and the Arabian Kingdom—modern day Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen.
The museum’s collection of ancient Middle Eastern art includes more than 500 works spanning over 8,500 years (8000 B.C. to A.D. 650). The Ancient Middle East gallery will display 177 key pieces in an installation that illuminates the connections between ever-advancing technologies and sophisticated art forms during the rise of some of the world’s earliest civilizations and empires.
“It’s particularly relevant to be reinstalling this collection and making it accessible to the public right now given how much this part of the world has been in the news,” said Birgitta Augustin, DIA associate curator of Asian Art. “The ancient region of Mesopotamia, which was the heartland of Iraq, is one of the highlights of the new gallery.”
Among the works is one of the jewels of the DIA collection and a celebrated symbol of Iraqi cultural heritage: a panel of glazed tiles from the Ishtar Gate, built around 575 B.C. in the city of Babylon. The gate was named in honor of the goddess Ishtar, and the panel features a dragon that was associated with Marduk, the patron god of Babylon.
Consulting curator Geoff Emberling, assistant research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, worked on the gallery with Augustin and Swarupa Anila, DIA director of interpretive engagement. “The DIA’s collection is among the top five collections of ancient Middle Eastern art in the United States, and it has some star pieces—monumental sculptures as well as smaller masterworks,” said Emberling.
Other fine architectural pieces include a floor mosaic showing a personification of the Tigris River, a relief depicting a royal scene from the palace of an Assyrian king from the ancient city of Nimrud and stone reliefs from the Persepolis palaces.
Also displayed are stamp and cylinder seals of semiprecious stones with carved scenes and figures that provide a glimpse into the diverse cultures of the ancient Middle East. Other objects include cuneiform clay tablets, painted ceramics, metal works, including cast pieces from Luristan (present-day western Iran), finely crafted silver and gold coins, jewelry and other ornaments. The installation highlights the ways these works of art were made possible by innovations in stone carving, metalworking, writing and ceramics technologies in the ancient Middle East.
Together, these extraordinary objects reflect the significance of artistic forms in the growth of complex societies and the emergence of powerful empires. Interpretation in the gallery is designed to help visitors find connections with ancient art and to their own world. A computer station mimics the modern-day version of ancient messenger tablets by inviting visitors to write a response to art in the gallery and see it in both English and cuneiform, the world’s first writing. To prompt visitors to consider the role of art in imperial power, a video shows four major architectural fragments in the context of massive ancient empires.
“Our approach to this gallery continues the interpretive work the DIA has developed across the museum to help visitors engage with the art and content in compelling ways,” said Anila. “We want visitors to feel awe at the human ingenuity invested in the making of these ancient Middle Eastern objects and think in new ways about art and its function in society.”