Two painted vessels from the Tehran-Qazvin region in central Iran are the earliest ceramics in LACMA's collection of art of the ancient Near East; they are also the oldest ceramic vessels in the museum's collections overall. One of the vessels, shown here, is probably from the well-known prehistoric site of Tepe Mushalan, a settlement from the late fifth millennium BC, near the village of Esmailbad. Excavations in the 1950s revealed a large quantity of the Esmailbad painted pottery, called Esmailbad ware. The black-on-red pottery of this ancient period is extremely fine, and exemplars have come from excavations of the sites at Rey and Silak, and the Qazvin Plain. The decorative motifs were inspired by the artistic tradition of the Iranian Plateau. The motif seen here is of ibexes and goats framed in geometric designs.