Book contents
- World Archaeoprimatology
- Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology
- World Archaeoprimatology
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- World Archaeoprimatology
- Part I The Americas
- Part II Europe
- Part III Africa
- Part IV Asia
- 16 The Monkey in Mesopotamia during the Third Millennium BCE
- 17 The Great Monkey King
- 18 The Prehistoric Nonhuman Primate Subfossil Remains at Sigiriya Potana Cave, Sri Lanka
- 19 Monkey Hunting in Early to Mid-Holocene Eastern Java (Indonesia)
- 20 Dispersion, Speciation, Evolution, and Coexistence of East Asian Catarrhine Primates and Humans in Yunnan, China
- 21 Fossil and Archaeological Remain Records of Japanese Macaques (Macaca fuscata)
- Index
- References
16 - The Monkey in Mesopotamia during the Third Millennium BCE
from Part IV - Asia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 August 2022
Book contents
- World Archaeoprimatology
- Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology
- World Archaeoprimatology
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- World Archaeoprimatology
- Part I The Americas
- Part II Europe
- Part III Africa
- Part IV Asia
- 16 The Monkey in Mesopotamia during the Third Millennium BCE
- 17 The Great Monkey King
- 18 The Prehistoric Nonhuman Primate Subfossil Remains at Sigiriya Potana Cave, Sri Lanka
- 19 Monkey Hunting in Early to Mid-Holocene Eastern Java (Indonesia)
- 20 Dispersion, Speciation, Evolution, and Coexistence of East Asian Catarrhine Primates and Humans in Yunnan, China
- 21 Fossil and Archaeological Remain Records of Japanese Macaques (Macaca fuscata)
- Index
- References
Summary
The scarcity of attestations to the presence of monkeys in Mesopotamia in general, and during the third millennium BCE in particular, is due to the fact that they were not native to Mesopotamia but brought from the Indus Valley (Harappan culture) or western-central Asia. These monkeys have been identified as the rhesus macaque of northern India or western-central Asia, although other monkeys from the India subcontient might have been known during the third millennium BCE. The first references to monkeys in Mesopotamia during the third millennium BCE are found in artistic representations from the Early Dynastic period (c. 2900–2340 BCE) while the earliest mentions in the written sources are documented in the Ur III period (c. 2100–2000 BCE). In both sources, art and texts, monkeys are depicted as having a ludic character and were kept mainly as pets for entertainment. The monkey was therefore used in the written sources to ridicule the enemies that attacked Sumer, who in the third millennium BCE came fundamentally from the eastern mountains (Zagros), initiating a long tradition of the word “monkey” as a humorous or derogative qualification in the history that has survived to the present day.
Key words
Primates, Mesopotamia, 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian, Akkadian, Exotic animals
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- World ArchaeoprimatologyInterconnections of Humans and Nonhuman Primates in the Past, pp. 419 - 430Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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