Furniture element with a monkey

Furniture element with a monkey

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fragment belongs to a group of carved ivories, mostly furniture elements, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia. Like most of the ivories from Acemhöyük, this object depicts imagery borrowed and transformed from Egyptian sources. A curved leg for a small piece of furniture is decorated with a seated monkey carved nearly in the round. The monkey’s posture is compact, with bent knees pulled up to the chest and hands on the head. Its mouth is slightly open, showing a row of teeth. Monkeys were beloved by the ancient Egyptians, and their representations in Egyptian art show them both as mischievous pets, and as symbols of fecundity and magical sexual powers in the afterlife when depicted on scarabs and amulets.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.