• Traveling Exhibitions Traveling Exhibitions
  • Traveling Works of Art Traveling Works of Art
  • Conservation Conservation Projects
  • Excavations Excavations
  • Fellows Fellows
  • Exchanges & Collaborations Exchanges & Collaborations
  • Multiple Categories Multiple Items
    About The Met Around the World

The Met Around the World presents the Met’s work via the global scope of its collection and as it extends across the nation and the world through a variety of domestic and international initiatives and programs, including exhibitions, excavations, fellowships, professional exchanges, conservation projects, and traveling works of art.
The Met Around the World is designed and maintained by the Office of the Director.

Traveling
Exhibitions

The Met organizes large and small exhibitions that travel beyond the Museum's walls, extending our scholarship to institutions across the world. See our national and international traveling exhibition program from 2009 to the present.

Traveling
Works of Art

The Met lends works of art to exhibitions and institutions worldwide to expose its collection to the broadest possible audience. See our current national and international loans program.

Conservation
Projects

The preservation of works of art is a fundamental part of the Met's mission. Our work in this area includes treating works of art from other collections. See our national and international conservation activities from 2009 to the present.

Excavations

The Met has conducted excavations for over 100 years in direct partnership with source countries at some of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Today we continue this tradition in order to gain greater understanding of our ancient collections. See our national and international excavation program from the Met's founding to the present.

Fellows

The Met hosts students, scholars, and museum professionals so that they can learn from our staff and pursue independent research in the context of the Met's exceptional resources and facilities. See the activities of our current national and international fellows.

Exchanges & Collaborations

The Met's work takes many forms, from participation in exchange programs at partnering institutions and worldwide symposia to advising on a range of museum issues. These activities contribute to our commitment to advancing the work of the larger, global community of art museums. See our national and international exchange program and other collaborations from 2009 to the present.

There are currently no international activities in this region.
Excavations throughout Met History, 1870–present
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  • Students and a conservator working in Tomb 8, one of the elite mausoleums of the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2500 B.C.), on the Acropolis, Umm el-Marra, Syria, 2006. Photograph courtesy Glenn Schwartz.
Umm el-Marra

Syria

2006–2010

Umm el-Marra is located in western Syria on an east-west trade route that linked Aleppo and the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia. First excavated by a Belgian team in the 1970s, work on the site is currently being conducted by a joint expedition of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Amsterdam, which began in 1994 under the direction of Glenn M. Schwartz and Hans H. Curvers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has provided support for the excavations at Umm el-Marra since 2006. Founded about 2700 B.C., the city flourished until about 2100 B.C., when, along with other cities of the region, it experienced a period of decline. Occupation resumed in the Middle Bronze Age around 1900 B.C.; the last major occupation was in the Late Bronze Age, when Umm el-Marra became part of the Mitannian and then the Hittite empires. In 2000, excavators discovered the first tomb in a larger complex of burials dating from the mid- to late third millennium B.C. that have yielded metal weapons, gold, silver, and lapis jewelry, and other rich furnishings.

Partnered with Johns Hopkins University and the University of Amsterdam.

Made possible by The Adelaide and Milton de Groot Fund, in memory of the de Groot and Hawley Families.
 
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