In the last few years we keep hearing about the war and destruction taking place in the Near and Middle East, so often forget the fascinating diversity and great richness in cultural heritage preserved in these lands. In fact, it was actually this region which gave birth to the first complex civilizations of the entire world.

This is an amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for your family to have a guided tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Near Eastern Art collection by MET fellow, archeologist and P.S. 3 parent, Dr. Sebastiano Soldi. 

Get expert insight on a collection that includes more than seven thousand works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the time of the Arab conquests of the seventh century A.D.  Objects come from a vast region centered in Mesopotami, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and extending north to the Caucasus and the Eurasian steppes and south to the Arabian peninsula.  To the west, the region includes Anatolia, Syria, and the Levant, bordered by the Mediterranean, to the east, it extends through Iran and western Central Asia, with connections as far as the Indus River Valley. 

Dr. Soldi has a PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology and was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to analyze Near Eastern glazed artifacts of the early first millennium b.c. in order to investigate a chronological and functional reassessment of glazed ceramics during the Neo-Assyrian period.

http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/museum-departments/curatorial-departments/ancient-near-eastern-art