Iranian Items at the Louvre

My sweetie and I spent time at the Louvre yesterday - completely exhausting and we didn't even spend the whole day touristing like folks on holiday do. These are some items from an area in present-day Iran.

A pot with flying geese:

Molded brick wall facings from a temple dedicated to Inshushinak, the god of the city of Susa and protector of the Shutrukides dynasty. Or something like that. 12th century B.C.

This is a dragon head architectural feature. Looks almost Central American.

Cuneiform inscriptions from the temple:

A stele.
Close-ups. I'd love to free-piece one of these, but I keep thinking of horror movies and how you do something stupid like that and free the god (or mummy) to wreak havoc upon the earth.

This is for you, Jen: a hedgehog pull-toy from the temple of Inshushinak.

Baked clay figurines from Susa of nude women. And I think my hips are wide.

Today my plan is to make the Christmas Biscotti recipe I got from Siobhan. Both my husband and I love these. Only I was stupid and didn't read the recipe clearly enough - I don't have baking powder. So I have to hunt for that today - could be scary, I expect the grocery stores to be packed.

You know how I was talking about suzanis the other day in my post about the cool store La Bonne Renommée? [By the way, here's a link to the store.] Well, Maryam has a pic of her suzanis (lucky, lucky girl) in her blog My Marrakech, which you should check out anyway if you like ethnic textiles and decorating because she has fabulous taste. Maryam's suzanis are featured here at Trendbites as well. I love the bright colors in her suzanis - pink and purple, woohoo.

And on the same topic, here's a blog post on suzanis from House Beautiful. The featured works are much more elaborate and quilty looking - check them out.