Throughout the world different systems have been used to mark the passage of time, but it has been common for cultures to count the passing of years from a specific event in their past. For example, the ancient Greeks counted years from the first Olympic Games (which correlates to 776 B.C.), while the Romans based their calendar on the founding year of Rome (traditionally 753 B.C.). The Jewish calendar starts from their idea of when the world was created (3760 B.C.), while the Muslim calendar begins with the Hijra, the migration of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. A monk called Dionysius Exiguus (early sixth century A.D.) invented the dating system most widely used in the Western world. For Dionysius, the birth of Christ represented Year One. He believed that this occurred 753 years after the foundation of Rome. Although this is almost certainly wrong, since the Gospels state that Christ was born under Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C., the system was adopted with years expressed as either B.C. (Before Christ) or A.D. (Anno Domini— “The Year of Our Lord”). The abbreviations BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) are sometimes used.
A look at the art created across the world in the years around Year One of the Western calendar reveals an incredible richness and variety of cultures. It was a time of great cultural interaction, with vast areas crisscrossed by traders and adventurers who journeyed both east and west to bring back coveted goods and tantalizing scraps of information about exotic lands. Some relationships were established through the extension of Roman power under the rule of Augustus, the first Roman emperor (27 B.C.–14 A.D.). Others evolved through the overland and maritime trade routes that provided the East and West with tantalizing glimpses of each other and that also linked many Asian cultures in an unprecedented fashion. Artistic traditions and religious beliefs were exchanged along these global networks, as were luxury goods such as Roman glass, Chinese silk, and East Indian pepper.
In Europe, Celtic peoples excelled in intricate metalwork, and in Egypt a fascinating hybrid combining Greco-Roman and age-old Egyptian styles predominated. East of the Mediterranean, such wealthy centers as Palmyra, Petra, the kingdoms of southern Arabia, and the mighty Parthian empire produced a wide range of sculpture, ceramics, and precious-metal objects that served both religious and luxury purposes as well as everyday uses. Continuing eastward from Parthia to what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India, a traveler in the Year One would have discovered the Kushan empire, where a distinctive early Buddhist art sometimes incorporated influences from Greece and Rome. In East Asia, China’s great empire under the Han dynasty was home to sophisticated arts in every medium; semi-nomadic peoples in northern China made metalwork, often to adorn the gear for their horses; and characteristic arts had begun to develop in Korea and Japan. Meanwhile, in cultures across the Pacific Ocean, people such as the Nazca in South America and the Mayan civilization in Mesoamerica were creating powerful and expressive objects made of stone, ceramic, and gold.
Citation
Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Year One.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/yron/hd_yron.htm (October 2004)
Further Reading
Milleker, Elizabeth J., ed. The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. See on MetPublications
Additional Essays by Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Hittites.” (October 2002)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Halaf Period (6500–5500 B.C.).” (October 2003)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Ubaid Period (5500–4000 B.C.).” (October 2003)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Ur: The Royal Graves.” (October 2003)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Ur: The Ziggurat.” (October 2002)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Uruk: The First City.” (October 2003)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Ebla in the Third Millennium B.C..” (October 2002)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Ugarit.” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Animals in Ancient Near Eastern Art.” (February 2014)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Urartu.” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Trade between the Romans and the Empires of Asia.” (October 2000)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Parthian Empire (247 B.C.–224 A.D.).” (originally published October 2000, last updated November2016)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Nabataean Kingdom and Petra.” (October 2000)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Palmyra.” (October 2000)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Art of the First Cities in the Third Millennium B.C..” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Sasanian Empire (224–651 A.D.).” (originally published October 2003, last updatedApril 2016)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Colossal Temples of the Roman Near East.” (October 2003)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Assyria, 1365–609 B.C..” (originally published October 2004, last revised April 2010)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Lydia and Phrygia.” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 B.C.).” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Akkadian Period (ca. 2350–2150 B.C.).” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Early Dynastic Sculpture, 2900–2350 B.C..” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Early Excavations in Assyria.” (October 2004; updated August 2021)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Trade Routes between Europe and Asia during Antiquity.” (October 2000)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Phrygia, Gordion, and King Midas in the Late Eighth Century B.C..” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Trade between Arabia and the Empires of Rome and Asia.” (October 2000)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Nahal Mishmar Treasure.” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Phoenicians (1500–300 B.C.).” (October 2004)
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “The Seleucid Empire (323–64 B.C.).” (October 2004)
