The Ancient Near East at the Met

Through works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, explore 7,500 years of the cultural history of peoples scattered over three million square miles of the Middle East, from present-day Turkey to India, and from Armenia to Saudi Arabia. The core civilization was in Mesopotamia, the fertile land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers of modern-day Iraq. From this land came stories of Noah's Great Flood, the unconquerable hero Gilgamesh, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, as well as the modern discovery of the Great Death Pit of Ur, filled with 74 bodies and priceless artifacts.