Der Affe in der altorientalischen Kunst.

Collon, Dominique

By AZAD HAMOTO. Forschungen zur Anthropologie und Religionsgeschichte, vol. 28. Munster: UGARIT VERLA, 1995. Pp. xii + 176 (paper).

This well-presented and organized little book has been set in a clear typeface with 155 well-reproduced illustrations. It deals with the depiction of monkeys in ancient Near Eastern art (part III) with 202 examples catalogued and many more referred to in footnotes. There is also a brief description of the different types of monkey (part I) and a total of thirteen lines (part II, on p. 7) listing one Sumerian and three Akkadian terms for monkey. The features which allow identification are summarized on pp. 9-11 with useful sketches.

The survey of monkeys in art is arranged chronologically with emphasis on provenanced examples, starting with the Paleolithic. However, the first examples are two Neolithic amulets from Byblos for which Egyptian influence is plausibly suggested, indicating that "even in this period there were contacts [trade] between the Levant and Egypt" (p. 12); the date of c. 5000 B.C. is given in the catalogue on p. 77. There is a Chalcolithic example from Safadi near Beersheba (3500 B.C.) but it is only at the end of the fourth millennium that examples become more numerous, with one each from Ur and Tello, three from Uruk, nine from Susa, two from Safarabad and, surprisingly, four from far-away Tell Brak. There is then a gap of about a millennium, only relieved by a cluster in ED III (five from Ur, two from Khafajah, and one from Susa), and by one Ur III example from Tello. Hamoto has also cited and illustrated examples from Failaka (not in the catalogue), which he dates very early, to the late ED and Akkadian periods.

Hamoto stresses the huge popularity of the monkey during the Old Babylonian period and is surely right in attributing this to the Amorites. However, his proposed association with the cult of Ishtar is more debatable. I have suggested in a discussion on monkeys to which Hamoto does not refer (Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum, Cylinder Seals, III: Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian Periods [London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1986], 45-47) that the gift of a monkey to Ibbi-Sin, the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which gave rise to a "genre literature" (such as the "Letter of a monkey to its mother"), inaugurated a fashion in monkeys as a status symbol among the Amorite rulers who were establishing their kingdoms at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. This, I believe, explains the numerous representations of monkeys on seals depicting the seated ruler. During this period, the monkey is also common in Syria (but note that on Abb. 87 there is a bird-tailed human rather than a monkey), especially at Byblos (eighty-seven examples).

There is a decline in the popularity of the monkey after the fall of the First Dynasty of Babylon (dated, according to the low chronology, to 1531 B.C. on p. 52). In chapter 8, Middle Babylonian examples, which include Mitannian, Middle Assyrian and Elamite (there are fourteen from Tchoga Zanbil), the following points should be noted: Abb. 100 is more likely to belong to the reign of Kurigalzu II than I (p. 53 with a very early date); Abb. 117-18 from Nuzi are Mitannian but not Syrian; Abb. 119-20 should both belong to chapter 7. In chapter 9, Neo-Babylonian (including Assyria!) is said to be a period with few examples (p. 59) whereas in chapter 10, the Late Babylonian period (from 626) is said to mark a resurgence in the popularity of monkeys, with a large number of unpublished examples - but with forty and three examples, respectively, the opposite seems to be the case and the criteria for dividing the objects between the two periods are not defined. Note that only one of the groups of monkeys on the Black Obelisk is discussed and the larger ones in another band are ignored. Egypt is said to be their place of origin (p. 63), although the term used probably refers to the eastern borders of Mesopotamia and the tribute animals would ultimately have come from India. The survey concludes with two Achaemenid examples and one Parthian.

There is a brief discussion of music on pp. 49-50 in the context of the cult of Ishtar, but why are so many monkeys shown playing the flute? Can they? The reference to trade on p. 12, quoted above, is almost the only one in the book and the very interesting problem of trade in monkeys, particularly in relation to Brak and to the Indus, is not discussed. There is a tantalizing reference on p. 5 to the fact that the only find of monkey fossils in the Near East is in northwest Anatolia. The distribution maps of Old World monkeys on p. 6 do not show the homeland of Barbary apes, and do not correspond to assertions in the text that there were monkeys in Egypt, Dilmun (which is said to include Failaka), Magan (not discussed) and northwest India (pp. 5, 19, 23). Textual evidence is ignored and only at the beginning of chapter 7 has Hamoto given a political explanation for the rise in popularity in monkeys. Hamoto's book is precisely what the title promises and no more, but it is nevertheless a useful little book.

DOMINIQUE COLLON THE BRITISH MUSEUM