Monkey or meerkat

Late Period–Ptolemaic Period

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 134

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.

Monkey or meerkat, Faience

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