more than 7,000 pieces. Representing a history of the region beginning in the Neolithic Period and encompassing the fall of the Sasanian Empire and the end of Late Antiquity, the collection includes works from the Sumerian, Hittite, Sasanian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Elamite cultures (among others), as well as an extensive collection of unique Bronze Age objects. The highlights of the collection include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures, from the Northwest Palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II. Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas Though the Met first acquired a group of Peruvian antiquities in 1882, the museum did not begin a concerted effort to collect works from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas until 1969, when American businessman and philanthropist Nelson A. Rockefeller donated his more than 3,000-piece collection to the museum. Before Rockefeller's collection existed at the Met, Rockefeller founded The Museum of Primitive Art in New York City with the intentions of displaying these works, after the Met had previously shown disinterest in his art collection. In 1968, the Met had agreed to a temporary exhibition of Rockefeller's work. However, the Met then requested to include the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in their personal collection and on permanent display. The arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas opened to the public in 1982, under the title, "The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing." This wing is named after Nelson Rockefeller's son, Michael Rockefeller, who died while collecting works in New Guinea. Today, the Met's collection contains more than 11,000 pieces from sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas and is housed in the Rockefeller Wing on the south end of the museum. The Wing exhibits Non-Western works of art created from – present, while at the same time displays a wide range of cultural histories. This is considered to be the first time arts outside of the West were placed alongside Western art in a Western museum. Before then, the works of art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas were considered art of the "primitives" or ethnographic objects. The Wing exhibits the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in an exhibition separated by geographical locations. The collection ranges from 40,000-year-old indigenous Australian rock paintings, to a group of memorial poles carved by the Asmat people of New Guinea, to a priceless collection of ceremonial and personal objects from the Nigerian Court