Limestone
circa 1200 BCE
Egypt
The British Museum
Details
Culture/Civilisation
Ancient Egypt
Theme
The Great River Civilisations outside India: Mesopotamia, Egypt and China
Subtheme
Ancient Egypt – the Land of the Nile
Case Title
Egypt: this life and beyond
Display Location
Coomaraswamy Hall
Findspot
Deir el-Medina, Thebes (modern Karnak), Egypt
Measurements
10 x 17.5 x 1.5 cm
Accession Number
EA8507
Description
Limestone ostracon: on the recto a scene in black ink depicting a monkey eating from a bowl filled with pomegranates. On the verso four incomplete lines of a legal text.
A baboon greedily helps himself to a fig from the fruit basket.
This humorous sketch by a skilled draftsman is on the back of a pottery fragment. The other side carries part of a legal text that makes reference to the Pharaoh.
Monkeys and baboons were kept as pets in Egypt from circa 2700 BCE. Some species were imported from Nubia. They often appear in tomb paintings, interfering with humans working in the fields, harvesting fruits or building boats. Baboons were sometimes even employed as ‘police guards’.
