Art: The Rise and Fall of Great Empires
Assyria to Iberia</br></br>At the Dawn Of the Classical Age</br></br>Metropolitan Museum of Art</br></br>Through Jan. 4, 2015</br></br>New York -- When John Kerry made a public appearance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sept. 22, he toured "From Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age," the new exhibition about the Middle East's ancient civilizations of the first millennium B.C. He had just delivered a speech in the nearby Temple of Dendur gallery on the danger ISIS poses to the region's heritage. His visit and his comments merely punctuated what any visitor to the show will feel: that it has a somber contemporary resonance no curator could have anticipated. "From Assyria to Iberia" features some 260 objects, most of them ancient, from institutions as far afield as North Africa, the Caucasus and the Middle East as well as the Met's own collection.