Hemispherical Cup (Main View, top)

Gilded garlands of leaves adorned with groups of inlaid garnets decorate the exterior of this hemispherical cup. A gilded relief rosette with a garnet center decorates the bottom of the exterior. The cup's elegant decoration suggests that it was probably made during the first century B.C. in present-day northeastern Iran.

This region had been part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire until it was conquered by Alexander the Great. After his death in 323 B.C., the Hellenistic Greek Seleucid dynasty, whose kingdom stretched from Turkey to Afghanistan, ruled the area. In the later third century B.C., however, a group of semi-nomadic people from the steppes of south central Asia called the Parthians began challenging the weakened Seleucid authority in the eastern part of their territory. By the first century B.C., the Parthians ruled the area.

This complicated political history left its legacy in the local art and material culture. Hemispherical cups with a rosette in the center were a popular form in Achaemenid Persia, while the garland design derives from Seleucid art. The use of both these elements on a cup produced under Parthian rule in the first century B.C. demonstrates the long life of visual and cultural traditions in this area.