DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0072
448 'HOUSE OF FRESCOES': MONKEY IN THICKET
Through
Egyptian
medium.
The
monkey
in the
papyrus
thicket.
Parallel
with
desert
belts on
Egyptian
painting
in Tomb
of Kena-
There can be no doubt that the animal here characterized is the usual
long-tailed monkey of Egyptian wall-paintings, though the greenish hair-
colour of these has been translated into blue by the Minoan artist. The
species, indeed, may be recognized as the West African ' green monkey'
[Cercopithecus callitricJms) with its fillet-like white band across the lower
part of the forehead. In ancient Egypt itself it was originally an exotic
animal, derived from the Soudan, but the monkeys of this species were
familiar there as pets, being seen, for instance, under chairs, nibbling onions
and frequently appearing as women's playthings, though also on men's
tombs. Monkeys, as shown above,1 already appear on Early Minoan seals,
and were not improbably known as pets in the Knossian Palace, but they
could not have been so familiar in Crete, and the Egyptian designs, as
might have been expected, come nearer to Nature both in hue and in details.
The panel reproduced in Fig. 264 presents, moreover, a curious feature.
The space containing the animal is framed by a green and brown band
of imitative rock work that finds an interesting parallel in the similar
encircling bands with figures of animals within, exemplified by some
Egyptian wall-paintings.
In the Tomb of Kenamon at Thebes, described by Mr. N. de Garis
Davies, are remains of a hunting scene, in which figures of animals, such as
a calf licking its hind foot, a hare beneath a bush, and part of a wild ass
apparently browsing on a leafy branch of which a spray appears, are seen in
separate compartments surrounded by desert belts of sand and shingle (see
Fig. 263, a, b):-
The analogies here with the Cretan work are so patent that an
indebtedness on one side or the other must be admitted. It is true that
these Egyptian designs are later in date than those of the ' House of the
Frescoes' since they belong to the time of Amenhotep II, c. 1449-1423,
whereas the Knossian wall-paintings go back ex hypothesi to a date not later
than the middle of the sixteenth century b. c. On the other hand, the
sandy desert belts depicted in the Theban tomb, and to which we see so
close a parallel on our monkey panel (Fig. 264), clearly belong to Egypt.
1 The ivory seal from Platanos, P. of M., i,
p. 118, Fig. 87,1, is itself carved in the shape of
an ape.
" Egyptian Expedition of igi6-lj (work at
Thebes of the Tytus Memorial Fund). In
N. Y. Metropolitan Museum Bulletin, Pt. II,
March, 1918, p. 22 seqq., and Figs. 31, 32.
A full account will appear in Mr. Davies's Tomb
of Kenamon. Fine copies of the wall-paintings
by Mrs. N. de Garis Davies were exhibited in
the South Kensington Museum. A photograph
of the scene is published by Wreszinski, Atlas
zur allagyptische?i Kulturgeschichte, i, 65.
Through
Egyptian
medium.
The
monkey
in the
papyrus
thicket.
Parallel
with
desert
belts on
Egyptian
painting
in Tomb
of Kena-
There can be no doubt that the animal here characterized is the usual
long-tailed monkey of Egyptian wall-paintings, though the greenish hair-
colour of these has been translated into blue by the Minoan artist. The
species, indeed, may be recognized as the West African ' green monkey'
[Cercopithecus callitricJms) with its fillet-like white band across the lower
part of the forehead. In ancient Egypt itself it was originally an exotic
animal, derived from the Soudan, but the monkeys of this species were
familiar there as pets, being seen, for instance, under chairs, nibbling onions
and frequently appearing as women's playthings, though also on men's
tombs. Monkeys, as shown above,1 already appear on Early Minoan seals,
and were not improbably known as pets in the Knossian Palace, but they
could not have been so familiar in Crete, and the Egyptian designs, as
might have been expected, come nearer to Nature both in hue and in details.
The panel reproduced in Fig. 264 presents, moreover, a curious feature.
The space containing the animal is framed by a green and brown band
of imitative rock work that finds an interesting parallel in the similar
encircling bands with figures of animals within, exemplified by some
Egyptian wall-paintings.
In the Tomb of Kenamon at Thebes, described by Mr. N. de Garis
Davies, are remains of a hunting scene, in which figures of animals, such as
a calf licking its hind foot, a hare beneath a bush, and part of a wild ass
apparently browsing on a leafy branch of which a spray appears, are seen in
separate compartments surrounded by desert belts of sand and shingle (see
Fig. 263, a, b):-
The analogies here with the Cretan work are so patent that an
indebtedness on one side or the other must be admitted. It is true that
these Egyptian designs are later in date than those of the ' House of the
Frescoes' since they belong to the time of Amenhotep II, c. 1449-1423,
whereas the Knossian wall-paintings go back ex hypothesi to a date not later
than the middle of the sixteenth century b. c. On the other hand, the
sandy desert belts depicted in the Theban tomb, and to which we see so
close a parallel on our monkey panel (Fig. 264), clearly belong to Egypt.
1 The ivory seal from Platanos, P. of M., i,
p. 118, Fig. 87,1, is itself carved in the shape of
an ape.
" Egyptian Expedition of igi6-lj (work at
Thebes of the Tytus Memorial Fund). In
N. Y. Metropolitan Museum Bulletin, Pt. II,
March, 1918, p. 22 seqq., and Figs. 31, 32.
A full account will appear in Mr. Davies's Tomb
of Kenamon. Fine copies of the wall-paintings
by Mrs. N. de Garis Davies were exhibited in
the South Kensington Museum. A photograph
of the scene is published by Wreszinski, Atlas
zur allagyptische?i Kulturgeschichte, i, 65.