Monkey or meerkat

Unknown

500–200 BC · Faience · Egyptian Art

Depictions of monkeys are popular throughout Egyptian history. Standing monkeys balancing on their tails seem to date to the Late Period and later. A faience example was excavated at Naurkatis in a cache dating to the late 5th-4th centuries BC. The Metropolitan Museum Egyptian Expedition excavated in a Ptolemaic tomb at Thebes a wooden example posed like this one, but carrying a bow and arrow and housed in a small sort of shrine/box. Eroded as this statuette is, it is clear that the penis was prominently depicted. A loop through the back is partly broken.

Artist

Unknown

Date

500–200 BC

Medium

Faience

Department

Egyptian Art

Credit line

Gift of James Douglas, 1890