(At left)Abull’s head and inlaid front panel detail of a lyre in Metropolitan Museum exhibit scheduled to open May 8.

The remarkable flowering of the world’s earliest civilizations some 5,000 years ago Mesopotamia — present-day Iraq — will be the focus of a landmark exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 8. The culmination of years of planning and research, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus will survey the evolution of art and culture in the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and their impact on the emerging cities of the ancient world-from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean across Central Asia to the Indus Valley- during one of the most seminal and creative periods in history. Some 50 museums from more than a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East will participate in this ambitious exhibition, lending national treasures that have rarely, if ever, been sent outside the walls of their art institutions.

The exhibition will feature nearly 400 rare and outstanding works of art- including sculpture, jewelry, vessels, weapons, inlays, cylinder seals, and tablets-selected to demonstrate the quality of the art of Mesopotamia, its distinctive iconography and style, and the breadth of its influence during the thousand years in which the world’s earliest cities were transformed into the world’s first states and empires.

"Although the roots of our own modern world can be traced back to developments that took place in and around Mesopotamia during the third millennium B.C., the art produced in that distant place and time is little known by the general public," commented Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum.

"Current events have focused the eyes of the world on Iraq-known in ancient history as Mesopotamia, the very region that Art of the First Cities considers, " he continued. "The exhibition is a timely reminder of the innumerable and immeasurable cultural and artistic contributions that come from this land, so rightly called the ‘cradle of civilization.’ The public presentation of art from Mesopotamia in an institution such as the Metropolitan is of the utmost significance in this difficult period. It expresses our recognition of the vital role the region played in the progress of human history, the vulnerability of its cultural monuments in the present day, and our fervent hopes for its bright future.