Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · statue

Monkey

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Object Label: Originally this whimsical representation of a monkey had movable forepaws. The left is now gone; only the wooden peg that held it in place survives. The piece may have been used as a diversion by a nurse to amuse and entertain a very young child. A strikingly similar piece, no doubt by the same master craftsman, was found by the English archaeologist Howard Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Caption: Monkey, ca. 1336–1327 B.C.E.. Ivory, 4 3/16 x 1 x 1 3/4 in. (10.7 x 2.5 x 4.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 55.176. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06

Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

A small Egyptian figurine depicting a standing deity.

The artifact is a carved figure of Bes, a protective deity depicted in a standing position. The figure has exaggerated facial features and a protruding tongue, typical of Bes iconography. The surface appears smooth with some age-related wear, indicating its antiquity. The stance and form are simple, with attention to facial expression.

religious New Kingdom good
Deities Bes
Materials ivory

Connections

Found at Thebes
Deities Bes
Royals Tutankhamun
Materials Ivory

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 55.176 tier-2
  • BKM-Object 3616 tier-2
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.